A sportswoman in India; personal adventures and experiences of travel in known and unknown India

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

A SPORTSWOMAN IN INDIA

A SPORTSWOMAN
IN INDIA - - -

"PERSONAL ADVENTURES
AND EXPERIENCES OF
TRAVEL IN KNOWN AND
UNKNOWN INDIA j»

By ISABEL SAVORY

WITH FORTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS AND A
PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR

London: HUTCHINSON &? CO
Paternoster Row j* j»* 1900
Philadelphia: J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PRINTED BY

HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD.
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

Co
ETHEL MARION HICHENS

I OFFER THIS BOOK ;
WHEREIN ARE TO BE FOUND

"THE INCURABLE ILLOGICALITIES OF LIFE, THE FATHOMS OF
SLACK, AND THE MILES OF TEDIUM."

S33

CO NTE NTS

CHAPTER I
PIG-STICKING

PAGE

The Taj— A Total Eclipse— Mian Mir— Visit to Kapurthalah—
Pig-sticking— The First Spear— An Ugly Customer— Back
to Lahore . i

CHAPTER II

PESHAWUR AND THE KHYBER PASS

A Day with the Peshawur Vale Hunt— The Native City— Through
the Khyber Pass — Lunch in Camp on Active Service —
General Hart's Brigade— AH Musjid— Khyber in Old Days . 37

CHAPTER III

FROM DALHOUSIE INTO CHAMBA

Up to the Hills— Dalhousie— Leopards— The Rains— Expedition
into Chamba — Monkeys — Kudjiar — Rajah of Chamba —
Arrangements (bundobust} for our Shoot . . . -75

CHAPTER IV

CHAMBA INTO KASHMIR

Unexplored Mountains — Our First Red Bear — A Narrow Escape —
Tahr— Difficult Climbing— Our Bag— A Sad Accident . .in

vii

viii Contents

CHAPTER V

KASHMIR

PAGE

From Dalhousie to Kashmir — Our Start from Gulmerg — Baggage,
Caravan, and Retainers — Magnificent Scenery — The Zoji La
Pass — Mountaineering in Kashmir — Ascent of the Silver
Throne — Glaciers — A Near Shave 145

CHAPTER VI

FOURTEEN THOUSAND FEET HIGH

Yem Sar Pass — Marmots — In a House-boat — Srinagar — Suffering
Moses — Shalimar Bagh — Woman as a Traveller — In Camp
Again — Native Servants — Black Bears — No Luck — Pine-
martens 179

CHAPTER VII

BLACK BEARS

Two Bears in one Beat — A Coolie Mauled — After Bard Singh —
Road to Gilgit — Tragbal Pass — Gurais — Gaggai Nullah —
Snowed up — Quit the Passes — Nanga Parbat — Snow-line Left
Behind 217

CHAPTER VIII

TIGER-SHOOTING

Down to the Deccan — A Tiger Shoot— The March— Khubr— Into
Position — A Tree-climbing Tiger — A Merciful Escape — A
Splendid " Great Cat "—Heat and Famine— We walk a Tiger
up for the First and Last Time — Death of Beater— Return to
Civilisation 251

CHAPTER IX

SNAKES. DELHI

Experiences with Snakes — Cobras — An Inevitable Death — Delhi —
The Ridge — Mutiny Days — John Nicholson — Palace of Great
Moguls — A Native Pageant — Kutab Minar — A Deserted City . 285

Contents ix

CHAPTER x

OOTACAMUND AND ANGLO-INDIAN LIFE

PAGE

From Delhi to Ootacamund— The Nilgiri Hills— Tropical Vegeta-
tion— The Todas — Anglo-Indian Life — Reasons why Natives
so Impoverished though India Itself Wealthy Country . . 323

CHAPTER XI

FROM AN ELEPHANT KHEDDER TO A CROCODILE TANK

In Camp Again — An Elephant Khedder — A Memorable Night —
The Elephants Pass the Rubicon— Guests of the Rajah of
Mysore — Seringapatam — Tippoo's Summer-house — The
Cholera Bungalow — Guindy — Crocodiles — A Horrible Expe-
rience—The Priest and the Crocodile— Crocodile Tank at
Kurachie— Native Letters . 353

CHAPTER XII

IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL

Home — Reminiscences — The Imperishable Legacy — The East no
More — Advantages and Disadvantages of Travel — Honour to
those who Stay at Home 393

CHAPTER I
PIG-STICKING

The Taj— A Total Eclipse— Mian Mir— Visit to
Kapurthalah— Pig-sticking— The First Spear
—An Ugly Customer— Back to Lahore,

CHAPTER I
PIG-STICKING

Not see ? because of night, perhaps ? why, day
Came back again for that ! before it left,
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft :
The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, —
" Now stab and end the creature— to the heft ! "

ROBERT BROWNING.

IT would be absurd to describe the journey out to
India ; as well might one launch forth into
impressions of Piccadilly from a hansom, since half
society has already been bored by the voyage to the
East, and the remaining half still more bored by reading
accounts of the same. Suffice it to say, that we shook
the dust of the P. & O. Egypt off our feet on
January I4th, and landed in Bombay, — in India, with
its two hundred and eighty millions of inhabitants,
and its area of one and a half million of square miles.
" The Land of Regrets is a country to visit, but
not to live in ; parts of it, from a shooting point of
view, are of course Paradise — it is all of it more or less
interesting to see, the hills are full of fine scenery,
and if a tour there includes Kashmir, the traveller's
cup will not be an empty one. But India in the hot

3

4 A Sportswoman in India

weather is a very different place to the white-faced
Europeans whom the want of the rupee keeps in their
stations. Along the dusty, split, and parched plains,
the thermometer at one hundred and two degrees —

The cattle reel beneath the yoke they bear,
The earth is iron, and the skies are brass.

Of this side, as a rule, the traveller sees nothing.

At present the Punjab claimed us, and the only
place at which we stopped on the way north was Agra.
Leaving Bombay on Sunday evening, we arrived there
on Tuesday afternoon ; and as it was of course com-
paratively cool, drove off at once to see the building
of which Lord Roberts writes : " Go to India. The
Taj alone is worth the journey."

Built by the great Mogul Shah Jehan in 1630 to
the memory of his wife Nur Mahal, the " light of the
palace," the Taj Mahal, " the tomb of Mahal/' is
not one of the " sights " of India, but one of the
wonders of the world. It was twenty-two years in
building, though twenty thousand workmen were
employed every day ; and it is said to have cost
considerably over forty millions of rupees, even in
days when labour was all forced. But such a sum
is easily accounted for by the marble and jewels alone,
which came <c by toiling men and straining cattle,
over a thousand wastes, a thousand hills." Out of
the sun and glare, from the dazzling blue sky and
giddy saffron haze, we walked down the two rows of
cypress-trees — the Semitic emblem of death, entrance

, Pig-Sticking 5

to darkness and oblivion long — and stepped through
the heavy, fretted and carved, marble doors, into the
cool, solemn vastness of the great tomb. Through
the dim, green light the marble screen, pierced and
modelled like the finest lace, gleamed round the two
sarcophagi of the wife and her husband. Nur Mahal
lies in the centre beneath the dome, Shah Jehan on one
side. The voice of a Mohammedan worshipper formed
an indescribable and never-to-be-forgotten echo,
rolling up to the vaulted roof of the great dome :
"Allah ho Akbar— La ilaha Illallah."

The secret of the fascination of the Taj lies in its
extraordinary simplicity and dignity. Complexity is
the curse of this age, and nothing is so hard in art or
in life as to be simple and yet not insipid. The solemn
Taj embodies repose — its size almost seems to vary
with one's own imagination ; something of movement
is imparted to the structure — a huge phantom about
to pass away, not of this earth earthly. The sight
of it translates one into indefinite regions . . . ; it is
seen with the heart, before the eyes have time to take
it in ; and with all its faults its appealing beauty
casts a spell like an imperfect human being, whose
presence scatters every prejudice in its overwhelming
fascination.

In those days voluntary contributions to public
buildings were non-existent. Great men built their
own memorials. " Who," said an intelligent Hindu,
pointing us out an unfinished mausoleum near Agra —
" who would have built this monument to his memory

6 A Sportswoman in India

if not himself? He died before it was finished, and
so of course it never was completed."

Agra is a great place for pig-sticking ; and as we
drove over to Fatehpur Sikri, we saw for the first
time what sort of country provides one of the finest
sports in the world — a sport with which we became
well " acquaint " hereafter.

One of Akbar's great imperial roads took us to
the ruined city. Fatehpur Sikri was intended to be
the capital of the Mogul Empire ; but the superior
position of Agra on the great waterway of the Jumna
made Akbar eventually select that city. His mosque
at Fatehpur Sikri, an accurate copy of one at Mecca,
is Mohammedan in style, while the six adjoining halls
are Hindu. The Hindus, like the ancient Greeks,
never made use of the true structural arch ; to this
day they will not use it, for, as they say, "An arch
never sleeps," meaning that by its thrust and pressure
it is always tending to tear a building to pieces. On
the walls of the mosque are written in Arabic : " The
world is a bridge ; pass over it, but build no house
there. He who hopeth for an hour may hope for
eternity. The world is but an hour — spend it in
devotion ; the rest is unseen."

It would be hard to take no interest in India's
history, with associations of the great Mogul Emperor
Akbar on every side. Born in 1542, the real founder
of that empire, he subjugated the whole of the Punjab
from the heart of Afghanistan ; he conquered Kashmir,
recovered Kandahar, annexed Sind, and won Bengal,

Pig'Sticking 7

bequeathing to his successors a united empire, and
a land revenue of twenty and three-quarter millions
sterling.

One of Akbar's wives was a Christian ; and he
promulgated a new State religion, broader in its views
than the Musalman faith : he himself worshipped the
sun every morning as a representative of the Divine
Soul which animates the Universe. At any rate, he
has been a force in the Indian world which lives even
to-day as strongly as ever. Under his grandson Shah
Jehan, the Mogul Empire attained its highest union
of strength with magnificence. He enriched his
grandfather's capital with the exquisite Moti Masjid
(Pearl Mosque) ; he built the Taj, the Jama
Masjid (Great Mosque) at Delhi, and the Palace,
which covers a vast parallelogram of 1,600 feet by
3,200 feet, and includes the most sumptuous buildings
in marble — most beautiful of all, the Diwan-i-Khas,
or Court of Private Audience, upon the inlaid walls of
which is inscribed, " If there is an Elysium on earth,
it is this, it is this." Shah Jehan's Peacock Throne,
its tail blazing in the shifting colours of rubies,
sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds, was valued at six
and a half millions sterling.

In spite of their magnificence, the reigns of the
Mogul emperors tell a tale of tragic drama, darkened
by mutiny, jealousy, and intrigue. Akbar had rendered
a great empire possible in India by conciliating the
native Hindu races ; but his great-grandson Aurangzeb
gave up this policy, and after his death the decline

8 A Sportswoman in India

and fall of the Moguls followed. His Indian provinces
had covered nearly as large an area as the British
Empire at the present day, his land revenue demand
alone amounted to thirty-eight millions sterling ; his
reign is a dream of vast wealth, a lavish luxury,
a riot of magnificence, impossible to realise. And
it fell. . . . Down upon it swooped the destroying
hosts of the Persians in 1739 fr°m ^ar Central Asia,
massacring and pillaging, and returning through the
Khyber Pass with a booty of thirty-eight millions
sterling. No less than six times the Afghans burst
through the passes, plundering and slaughtering all
before them ; districts were entirely depopulated, as
the ruins testify to this day. The Sikhs and the
Hindus rose at the same time. The Sikh sect was
mercilessly crushed ; and by reason of the barbarous
cruelties inflicted on them, the Sikh, who never forgets,
stood staunch to England in the Mutiny more than
a hundred years later, saved the Punjab, and saw
the downfall of the last of the Moguls. The Hindus,
however, succeeded in their rebellion, and the empire
was further shaken by contests between the sons of
Aurangzeb. Lastly upon the scene appeared the
French and English.

The Dutch had raised the price of pepper from
three to six shillings a pound, therefore the merchants
of London decided to trade direct with India, instead
of with Amsterdam ; and so on December 22nd, 1599,
in Queen Elizabeth's reign, with the Lord Mayor
in the chair, at Founders1 Hall, the " East India

Pig-Sticking 9

Company of Merchants in London " was formed,
with one hundred and twenty-five shareholders and
a capital of £70,000.

Picture those early voyages, our fights with the
Dutch, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the French.
Recollect Lord Clive, Warren Hastings, Lord Wellesley,
and see at last the French completely defeated, the
Mogul Empire broken up, and the Hindu Confederacy
dissolved. We won India from the Hindus. Helping
the several princes against one another, they were
allowed to retain their titles only by acknowledging
our supremacy. Puppet emperors reigned at Delhi
until the Mutiny, when the last of the great Moguls
was, after his rebellion and defeat, removed as a State
prisoner to Rangoon, where he died. And thus,
through hundreds of years of struggle, a long chain
of events had led up to Englishmen wandering about
Akbar's Mosque, the Taj Mahal, and other memorials
of past glory, until three people from Warwickshire
were to be found sitting on the black marble slab
which had formed Akbar's seat in the Hall of Audience.
This far-famed throne is cracked across, and the
Musalman theory is that the Mogul stone, frozen with
horror, cracked at the thought of a Hindu sitting on
Akbar's throne.

From Agra we journeyed to Buxar on purpose to see
a total eclipse of the sun, for which object astronomers
had come out from England with us ; indeed, half
India was there or thereabouts ; the Viceroy and
thousands of Europeans went ; Buxar station was

io A Sportswoman in India

crammed with u specials." We stationed ourselves on
a small mound, under some shady trees ; the eclipse
began about midday, when the moon could just be seen
overlapping the edge of the sun. Through smoked
glasses, telescopes, and glasses of every kind, the great
concourse of people gazed at it, and the excitement
grew intense as the moon drew farther and farther
across the sun. It became perceptibly cooler. The
thousands of spectators, watches in hand, were almost
breathless as i .43 p.m. approached — the time of totality.
The sky began to turn blue-green like twilight, the
stretches of burnt yellow plain around us assumed
a brown hue, which spread over the horizon and the
sky immediately above it. Every man's face turned
a horrid, sickly yellow in the weird light. Dimmer
and yet more dim — a hush was over the murmuring
crowd; 1.43, and the moon glided entirely across the
sun, showing us nothing but a large black body
hanging in the sky. Venus glimmered through the
green and yellow haze, and another star or two shone,
the grass looked more purple than before, and the
colour of the whole dark world was unique. . . . Two
minutes passed, and then suddenly a bright light flashed
from the edge of the moon. The Sun ! — The Sun !
The tension was over, a wild cheer broke simultaneously
from the whole throng as the brilliant edge of the
lord of creation slid from behind its temporary screen,
and once more lit the earth. A fresh breeze sprang
up ; the ghostly light faded gradually away ; but all
the rest of the day the marked coolness of the air

Pig'Sticking 1 1

showed the result of banishing sunlight for a couple
and a half hours, only totally banishing it for two
minutes.

Buxar did not tempt us to linger, for having so
lately left England, we felt even that January heat.
The Punjab would be much cooler. Thirty-two hours
training saw us arrived at Lahore station, thence driving
out to Mian Mir, the military station, where we stayed
with General Sir George Wolseley, then officiating in
the Punjab command vice Sir William Lockhart.

The pig-sticking season was by this time in full
swing ; and our whole party from Mian Mir was in-
vited to stay in one of the few remaining native states
by H.H. Maharajah Sir Jagatjit Sing Bahadur, K. C.S.I.

It was a short journey from Lahore, and at
the station, which was five miles' drive from
Kapurthalah, we were met by landaus, and bullock
carts for our luggage. The Maharajah put us up
at his Guest House, a luxurious bungalow built in
charming gardens, next the Palace. It was very
French in its decorations, and a trifle over-gilded
perhaps ; but after the somewhat rough-and-ready
Punjab arrangements, that was a pardonable sin.
The shady portico over the hall door was full of
ferns and flowers, and the gardens afforded officious
mails (gardeners) ample opportunities of pressing
gorgeous buttonholes on us whenever we came
out. A French chef fed us, and our own personal
servants waited on us.

Soon after we arrived, a State call was paid upon

12 A Sportswoman in India

us by the Maharajah and his orderly officer. His
Royal Highness was twenty-five years old, though
I should have put him down as at least ten years
older ; but those who have been born to absolute
power, who have never known a thwarted desire,
and who have been reared under the fiercest sun
in the world, age even more quickly than the ordinary
sons of the East, who are self-possessed men when
they should be bashful babies. Kapurthalah spoke
French as well as English, and was dressed like
a sahib, except that he wore a vast turban and a
diamond brooch. We sat down and talked for a
short time, until we suggested that we must not
detain our visitors any longer, without which intimation
an Oriental does not take his leave. Ten minutes later
three of our party drove over to the Palace, and
having returned the call, we had tiffin by ourselves in
our ornate octagonal dining-room. Later on an orderly
officer called and invited us to the Palace for tennis
— a strange " At Home " of turbans and black faces.
The Ranee (Princess) Canari was our hostess ; formerly
a hill girl, she is the Maharajah's " newest " wife,
and in coming out of Purdah has of course lost all
caste and all respect in the eyes of the unenlightened
native. She had had a little] education, spoke French,
and wore Parisian gowns. The other wives were
strictly Purdah women ; the Maharanee herself
had been married to the Maharajah at eleven years
old, when he was thirteen. Mohammedans are, of
course, polygamists, and they look upon marriages

Pig'Sticking 13

as so many contracts. English women who espouse
them in England as civilised men should not ignore
the fact that it is the rarest exception to meet with
a single unmarried Mohammedan in India, and that
complications have before now arisen when a native
ruler has returned with a European wife to the land
of his birth. That Kapurthalah should treat the
Ranee Canari as his companion is a welcome fact ;
and he told us that he should not allow his eldest
son and heir, Ticker, to marry till he was twenty
years old, and then to have but one wife. It is the
thin edge of civilisation.

We were taken to call upon the Maharanee,
Ticker's mother, later on — a little gipsy, childlike
individual of refined appearance, weighed down by
gold-embroidered garments, chains, necklets, bracelets,
rings, necklaces, forehead star, anklets, and nose-ring.
Compared with this daughter of the bluest blood
and of a thousand kings, Queen Victoria's own family
tree would be but as a thing of yesterday.

Is it life which the Maharanee leads — which all
Purdah women all over India lead ? In the white-
walled homes of kings, or in the reed-roofed hut,
lives woman after woman, thousands upon thousands
of them, surrounded by fields they may not roam
in, above the tumult of the packed bazaar, through
nameless horrors of the stifling night, old in grief,
and wise in tears, —

A life which ebbs with none to staunch the failing,
Love's sad harvest garnered in the spring.

14 A Sportswoman in India

A narrow, intolerant religion is at the root of this
crying evil, and the only weapon to be employed
against it is knowledge. Knowledge will breed
scepticism, scepticism will breed tolerance, and toler-
ance will, with the advance of civilisation, open
the door. But knowledge, education, must come
first.

Before we dined that night, we went to the great
Durbar Hall with the Maharajah and his retinue,
and were all shod with rinking skates. The floor
was " taken " with considerable grace and agility,
considering how little we knew about it. It was,
to a certain degree, a childish amusement for a ruler
of the land ; and still more so were the varieties
of clockwork toys and expensive French knick-knacks
which filled the rooms in the Palace, and were dis-
played to us that evening when we dined with his
Royal Highness. Ranee Canari was excluded from the
battery of native eyes round the table. We had
a very French meal, of which a pilau gratified the
Maharajah, and took, he explained, a whole day to
make ; music brought the evening to a close, Kapur-
thalah himself singing " Polly winked his eye," out of
'The Geisha.

We were all looking forward to the next day and
to our expedition after pig ; and conversation that
evening turned, as it always does turn, upon the
threadbare comparisons between fox-hunting and
pig-sticking.

" Fox-hunting ! what is it," said F., " but a mob of

I

WILD BOAR.

\_Page 14.

Pig'Sticking 15

fine dogs bow-wowing musically after a poor little
animal who does his level best to escape from them ?
What is the excitement, except watching the ' dogs '
and riding — jumping — falling ? If you are after a
good pig, to begin with, he gives you a couple of
miles as hard as you can gallop, and unless you
have a tiptop horse under you, you won't live with
him. Then he will probably stop quite unexpectedly,
rush round, and charge you like lightning : you may
stop his rush, but you won't kill him — you only
wound him ; and when you have done that you will
have learnt what a fiend a wounded boar can be."

Firm hand and eagle eye
Must he acquire, who would aspire
To see the wild boar die.

If a woman's opinion is worth having, I should say
that the two sports cannot be compared : I love
fox-hunting for a thousand reasons, apart from the
enjoyment of the mere country at Home ; but " the
runs of a lifetime'1 are few and far between.

Pig-sticking is always wildly exciting : no one
realises who is near, or what may be in front ; it is
a case of riding as never before one has ridden ; and
the excitement of a breakneck gallop only gives place
at the finish to a battle royal, fraught with danger.
Of more than one gallop after and tussle with a
gallant pig it might be written, —

How mad and bad and sad it was !
And yet, alas! how sweet!

1 6 A Sportswoman in India

The next morning early, while it was yet fresh
and cool, we all met together outside the city. The
country appeared to be a nice one, not particu-
larly stiff, and there seemed to be some fine patches
of cover well separated from each other. The
Maharajah mounted us, and provided M. and myself
with Champion and Wilton's side-saddles belonging
to Ranee Canari. Spearing on the near side of a
horse is most dangerous, and is not allowed ; but there
is no reason why a woman on a side-saddle should
not quite easily carry a spear. It need never be
awkward. It should be carried, when riding, diagonally
across the body, and held about the centre of the shaft,
the knuckles downwards, the shaft lying underneath
the fore-arm, so that it is ready to hand, less dangerous
to one's friends when riding, and to oneself when
falling. M. used a long, underhand spear made of
male bamboo, the spear-head narrow and leaf-shaped,
with a sharpened rib up each side, the edges and point
kept sharpened from day to day. She was an " old
hand " at the game.

An ideal horse for riding pig should be quick and
handy, must be fast, not too big, and bold and
staunch to pig. A small-sized waler or an Arab
is more to be depended upon than a country-bred,
which will not always face pig.

Duly mounted, we walked off to the first cover,
spreading over the country as we went — a motley throng,
including fourteen elephants, fifty native beaters, and
several of the Maharajah's staff. I could not help

Pig-Sticking 17

thinking how much it reminded one of drawing for
an outlying fox at home.

One of the native officers* horses bucked a little
soon after we had started, and his rider, whose saddle
was apparently slippery, and whose seat was obviously
insecure, took a heavy fall. His turban flew off,
and his long black Sikh hair came tumbling down ;
however, the smart aide-de-camp hastily coiled it up
again, wound his turban once more round his head,
and gingerly remounted.

Arrived at the first cover, a long line was formed,
directed by a head shikari on a pony, with several
assistant shikaris at different points. The great grey
elephants, caparisoned in scarlet and gold, crashed
slowly through the tall yellow grass in the centre ;
on either side they were flanked by the dark natives
in their white turbans and waistcloths, and here and
there a mounted sowar in Kapurthalah uniform ;
slowly and silently, except for beating and tapping
with sticks, the line moved through the jungle, a
long, pointed crescent of colour. Around, as far as
the eye could reach, lay the flat, cultivated stretches
of plain, and above us a sky without a cloud. The
riders were divided into small parties, and rode imme-
diately in the rear of the line ; in every party one
experienced man gave the word " Ride " before
anybody thought of starting after a pig.

It was too early to have grown hot, and we paced
along, full of vigour and joyous motion, devouring
the jungle with our eyes, and alive to the slightest

2

1 8 A Sportswoman in India

sound. It was, however, quite quietly that the first
pig broke, and a few seconds of tense silence followed,
moments of excitement too keen for words, as, all
associations of pigsties and bacon fading away, every
one gazed and gazed at that wiry form lobbing away
across the open, for all the world, as Cruikshank
says, like " a carpet-bag tumbling end over end.'*
The fever of impatience to be off at once ! but it
is absolutely necessary to remain quiet till the boar
has got well away ; otherwise, himself the wiliest
of all cunning animals, he hates to leave a good
sanctuary, and only does so when he thinks the
coast is clear. If he finds himself at once being
followed, he will nip round and slip back to cover
at lightning pace, and quite decline to leave it again.
It seemed a lengthy minute, though it cannot have
been really long, before S., leaning forward in his
saddle, called out, "Ride!"

Oh ! the vigour with which the air is rife,

The spirit of joyous motion,
The fever, the fulness of animal life,

Can be drained from no earthly potion.

Everything was forgotten but the maddening, all-
engrossing present : the wind in the horses' faces ;
the rattle of their hoofs ; and eyes only for one grey
object fast disappearing.
It was indeed Ride.

Over the valley, over the level,

Through the thick jungle, ride like the

IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO REMAIN QUIET TILL THE BOAR

HAS GOT WELL AWAY. [Page 18.

Pigsticking 19

Hark forward ! a boar ! away we go !
Sit down and ride straight ! — tally ho !
He's a true-bred one — none of your jinking ;
Straight across country — no time for thinking.
There's water in front! — There's a boar AS WELL;
Harden your heart, and ride pell-mell.

Away went the party as hard as they could go,
five of them, S. and G. riding to the right and left,
M. taking her own line more or less between the
two. It is astonishing that a pig, ungainly animal
as he looks, should cover the ground as he can ; but
all this time our boar appeared to be lolluping along
at an easy canter, while the horses were galloping
all they knew to keep within sight of him. Away
they went, across a field or two, quite simple riding,
until a big wall loomed in front, and there was nothing
for it but to take it. The unmistakable gleam of
water just showed beyond. The boar quietly cantered
up to this big place, and down it for a few yards,
then turning, with a wonderful knack he somehow
jumped himself sideways over it, and was soon bundling
across the piece of fallow beyond. For the field
it was a case of —

Harden your heart like a millstone, Ned,
And set your face like a flint,

and the three leaders, S., G., and M., charged it
gallantly in line, with the two others following.
G.'s horse, a biggish waler, sailed over wall, water,
and all, in his stride. S. hit the wall hard, and
his horse and he disappeared completely in the watery

20 A Sportswoman in India

uncertainty beyond, but they emerged on the right
side, and were soon to the front once more. M.'s
horse left his hind-legs in the ditch, but recovered
himself; and the two others came through the hole
made by S. The pig had taken advantage of a
footpath across the fallow, and was rambling com-
fortably along it, while his pursuers were still riding
as hard as they could lay legs to the ground. One
of the others had taken it quietly with a view to
saving his horse — a fatal thing to do ; the only re-
sult being that when the time comes when you wish
to overhaul your pig, you find that he has got his
second wind and is impossible to catch up at all.

Meanwhile, our boar turned at right angles into
a road, and after following it a quarter of a mile,
charged a stiff and forbidding-looking gate which led
out of it towards a small cover across two or three
fields. He smashed the bottom bar and was through
in a moment, but at the same time unfastened the gate.
G. was ahead, and as he gave the others a lead, and
his horse rose, the gate just swung open before he
had realised that it was unlatched. It caught his
horse's forelegs and turned him over — a heavy fall ;
but G. landed on his back, with nothing worse than
bruises, and was soon up again and following hard
on the heels of the others, who, when they saw him
stand up none the worse, had dashed on.

There is great art in learning how to fall : frequently
the mere act of holding on to the reins will prevent the
rider from falling directly upon his head by bringing

Pig'Sticking 21

him over more upon the muscles of his shoulders and
back. On the other hand, in the case of turning a
somersault, the farther from the horse, the better.

A big prickly pear hedge or two were the next fences
to be negotiated. Choosing her spot and riding down
at the first one fairly fast, M. landed well on the
opposite side. The next was stiffer, and had a little
ditch towards them ; the pace was beginning to tell.
Pulling her horse up to a canter and getting him well
together, she ought to have cleared it easily, but it was
a bad take off; anyhow, they blundered it, and the
Arab came on his head and got a nasty cut or two
from the prickly pear, which at the same time un-
necessarily ventilated M.'s skirt and exposed a large
amount of boot ! However, S., G., and herself were
all going strong, when the pig took advantage of
a scrap of cover to squat down and recover his
wind. The two men rode on to view him away ;
M. remained behind, and suddenly a rustle behind
her betrayed the cunning hog, thinking he had given
every one the slip, creeping out where he had gone in,
and scurrying away almost on his own old line again.
A shout brought S. and G., and they were galloping
in pursuit once more.

And now a sharp turn right-handed had, after a
sloping field, brought an ugly-looking, deep nullah
across the line. It was a breakneck drop, but without
hesitation the boar threw himself down, and then,
leaping some six feet up on the opposite side, was off.
M. found a place lower down where her clever

22 A Sportswoman in India

little Arab scrambled in and out, and was once more
following the other two, in view still of the pig as
he galloped along. It was a rough bit of country,
overgrown here and there with tufts of grass ; and
suddenly there was^a flutter of habit, a vision of heels,
the little Arab disappeared in a buffalo hole, and
M. landed in the middle of some tall reeds on
the edge. She had her reins, which always saves the
extreme annoyance of being left riderless ; but in this
case she had her horse to extricate, and having picked
up her spear and scrambled on again, was just in
time to see the pig, some way ahead, charging some
unfortunate natives, who were cutting reeds and grass
for thatching purposes, on the right. Indignant and
vindictive, he deliberately deviated from his course,
caught one fugitive between the knees as he fled,
cutting his thighs badly, sending him head over heels,
and went on his own way rejoicing. A pig possesses
the shortest temper of any living animal, and when
roused, his sharp, curving tusks, used with incredible
swiftness and unerring aim, are useful instruments !

It is quite impossible in pig-sticking to watch the
ground over which one rides ; the sole aim and object
must be to keep the eye on the pig, and with a
childlike faith to place all else in the hands of the
horse. Corners must not be cut off nor short cuts
chosen in bad ground, for no one has any idea what
they may be coming to, whereas the pig must have
found some sort of a footing (however " sketchy "
that footing may be), and is better than no guide at all.

Pig-Sticking 23

A little farther on, and S. was upset over a
goanchie, as they call a lump formed by roots of
grass : he was soon on again and leading with G. ;
but there were indeed "wigs on the green " that day.

Now they were gradually overhauling the pig.
G. was close to him, with, his spear in readiness ;
but every time he got within spearing distance the
pig would jink, and leave G. some paces to the
bad. Now this side, now that side, he jinked.
Meanwhile, M. was coming up upon the right, her
good little mount white with lather, but no one was
looking as fresh as when they started ; the pig, as
he jinked, seemed to be edging over right-handed too.
However, she pressed on ; rattle-rattle went the hoofs
over the hard ground. Suddenly the pig darted round,
seemed to get away like lightning from S., and in
another moment was charging for all he was worth
at M.

Often and often it happens that the best man,
the first man, does not get " first spear " ; so now.
Drink to the unexpected ! it was going to lie with
M. to do or die. In a brief second all the well-
known injunctions flash through the mind, of which
" keep hold of your spear till death do you part "
is first and all-important : time for reason was there
none, it was a field for instinct alone.

On came the pig straight for the Arab's shoulder
and forelegs — a gallant charge. Keeping her horse
going at best pace, M. leaned well down, intending to
lunge her spear straight into him low down in the

24 A Sportswoman in India

body, just behind the shoulder, directly he was within
reach. Her body swung forward as she made the
effort . . . there followed an instant of deadly sickness
. . . Gracious heavens ! she missed him. It was but
an instant, home went the pig's charge, and over went
the Arab as though he had been a ninepin. M.
was hurtled into the air, a vision of sky followed,
and then stars. . . . Sitting loose as she leaned down,
she came well away from the horse, and a few seconds
after, getting up giddy and sick, the first thing her
dazed eyes rested on was the pig charging again
at her as hard as he could gallop, with a hoarse
grunt of resolute defiance. His bristles were all
erect, standing up at right angles to his curved
spine, his great wedge-shaped head and keen tusks
were lowered, his vast muscle working round the
great shoulders all seemed to add a savage resolution
to his charge. M.'s spear lay several feet off
her, and she did the only thing there was time to
do — threw herself flat on her face and lay still. In
another second the pig was cutting what remained
of her habit into ribbons, and she could feel sharp
gash after gash in the small of her back as he
tore at the body of his prostrate foe. Then G.'s
voice rang out, and never was woman more glad.
He speared the boar and drew him off M., who
sat up once more, considerably bruised and battered,
but still with plenty of life. The last scenes in such
a contest would be sad and horrible, if they were not
so full of danger and excitement.

HE SPEARED THE BOAR AND DREW HIM OFF. [Page 24.

Pig-Sticking 25

The pluck of the bull-dog does not beat
The pluck of the gallant boar.

He was magnificent. Furious with rage, again and
again he literally hurled himself upon the spears in
his mad longing to get at S. and G., till at last he
died, facing his foes — splendid animal ! It was quite
grievous to see him lying dead. He was thirty-eight
and a half inches high at the withers, and his tushes
measured eight and a half inches. He was one mass
of thew and sinew, and weighed three hundred pounds.
Half a dozen beaters slung his mighty carcase on a
pole, and took him home to divide his flesh amongst
them. His tushes fell to G., first spear, which
should by rights have fallen to M., whom the
sight of a fresh horse seemed quite to have revived.
We called up the elephant with the drink box to
slake that best of all thirsts — the pig-stickers' thirst.
M.'s game little Arab had had a bad fall and was
pretty well done, but he had been going fast enough,
when the pig charged them, to avoid his being seriously
damaged ; he was only ripped in two places. She
herself insisted on going on. " Rest! " she said, some-
what boastfully, " I shall have all eternity to rest in."

The next piece of cover we drew was thick, and the
line of beaters advanced noisily with drums, tom-toms,
sticks, and shouting.

On they came, of every race a mingled swarm,
Far rung the groves, and gleamed the yellow corn,
With tom-tom, club, and naked arm.

26 A Sportswoman in India

We riders, on fresh horses, were posted outside the
cover at intervals and at points where it was expected
that a pig might break. Needless to say, he finally
went away just where he was not wanted, and headed
straight for the river which watered the district we
were in, and which our first pig had not gone near.
Is there a man who in his heart of hearts does not
dislike open and unknown water ! But nothing comes
amiss to a pig, though English specimens are said to
cut their throats if they try to swim. He was in,
steadily making his way over, in a moment ; and having
emerged on the opposite side and gone straight off,
riders were perforce obliged to follow. S. piloted
the party, who slithered one after another down the
muddy bank, and swam for it. The horses all behaved
well except G.'s, who, somewhere about the middle,
started plunging, and they parted company. G.
secured the long tail of his charger, whom he was
riding second, horse, and they both got across and
scrambled out, minus whip and stirrup ; off" G.
galloped as he was. Our pig headed for some bushes,
and was in them before one had time to look round.
We waited for coolies, sent them in, and proceeded
to beat him out. But his temper was now thoroughly
aroused : he bowled over three coolies, and then,
although everybody was well on the qui vive, he sneaked
away down a road, and was going out of sight, when
S. caught sight of him, raised a wild Tally ho ! and
every one lay legs to the ground.

S. caught him up first, and pressed him closely,

Pig-Sticking 27

but the astute wretch got into a mango grove. Over
a mud wall into the grove flew his pursuers, in
time to see the pig lobbing away across the field
beyond. Through and under the trees and brushwood
every one pushed their horses : it was an awkward
" lep " out of the grove, a stiff pear-hedge set on
no mean bank, but it was duly negotiated, and a
race down the next field followed. At the bottom
yawned a blind nullah, and it was a toss-up whether
to go slowly and jump in and out, or whether to fly
the whole thing ; unfortunately, the landing was boggy,
and two empty saddles marked the fate of our two
flyers.

In the next field the pig turned and tried to make
back for the mangoes. S. was near enough to
ride at him, and the pig charged him directly he
gathered S.'s intention. The horse was not a
very handy one, and S. missed the pig, was
bowled completely over, and broke his collar-bone.
Every one galloped to the rescue, and first spear
did actually fall to M.'s proud lot. The boar went
straight for her ; for the second time that day she
leaned well down, and this time drove it home in
triumph. But unfortunately he went off with her
spear, and was evidently not badly wounded at all.
The first thing he did was to smash the spear short
off against a tree ; then, seeing G. coming up,
deliberately charged straight at him, and with the
neatest precision of aim, ripped his horse almost
from shoulder to quarter. G. speared him at the

28 A Sportswoman in India

same time, but it seemed to have no effect at
all ; he was nothing more or less than a fiend, with
the grit of a thousand devils. An unfortunate mail
(keeper of the mango grove) had hurried up, full
of curiosity, which was promptly satisfied : the boar
carefully stalked him, rolled him over, rent his scant
garments, and once more galloped off.

All this was the work of a moment, and no riders
seemed able to get near him ; now, however, they
were not far off, racing down a road, the pig only
just in front. Over he threw two wretched women,
one after the other, who were going down the road
with waterpots ; both were badly cut. Through a
village he rattled, tilting a native, who was standing
by a well, straight into it ; finally he was brought
to bay near a sugar crop, and taking up his stand
he charged time after time at his pursuers in turn.
I have never seen such magnificent pluck or such
implacable defiance in any animal ; he never lost
either his head or his heart, and his grim, devilish
temper was a study. Speared twice again, at last
he fell and died, " the bravest of the brave " : humans
would do well if they could play the game of life
as nobly, and meet death as callously.

God grant that whenever, soon or late,

Our course is run and our goal is reached,

We may meet our fate as steady and straight
As he whose bones in yon desert bleached.

Are these the feelings, aroused in all thinking minds
by the nobility of creation, which we have often heard

Pig-Sticking 29

censured and mis-called unwomanly and hard* The
staid matron and the Society butterfly may, through
a touch of jealousy, or by reason of their narrow
prejudices, condemn women whom happy occasion has
enabled to call into play those latent forces and capa-
bilities with which they have been endowed ; but the
trophies which decorate the walls of their sanctum
sanctorum call forth admiration and reverence, rather
than constitute mute witnesses of outraged woman-
hood.

That evening " the boar, the mighty boar, was
certainly our theme." Kapurthalah told us an incident
which illustrates the extraordinary agility of pig.
A boar was being hard pressed and galloped into a
nullah, which was steep and deep, more like a narrow
chasm than a ravine. Down this, along the bottom
of it, he raced, followed by a sahib upon a fast
waler. The banks on either side, overhanging the
path, were some six feet or more in height. Suddenly
the pig turned a sharp corner out of sight ; by some
superhuman effort he scaled the bank and gained the
top. Turning short round, he leaped the entire width
of the nullah and landed safely on the opposite side,
clearing both horse and rider as he jumped, except
for the sahib's pith helmet, which he knocked off !

The great Bacon remarks that " Hog-hunting is not
only more scientific, but is a more dangerous sport
than tiger-shooting." Certainly tackling a wounded
boar on foot involves great risk ; but I should say that
more lives have been lost after tiger than can ever

30 A Sportswoman in India

have been sacrificed to pig. When a pig comes to bay
in a place which is either inaccessible or else would
involve danger to a horse, there is, after all, nothing left
for it but to attack him on foot. It is said to be " an
act of madness which many young sportsmen practise,
but which in time gives way either in deference to the
severe admonition of rips and bites, or to that cooler
mode of acting which results from experience." S.,
I know, had a great tussle once : he had been riding
after a pig, and had no one with him but his servant
on a second horse. They came up with the pig, who
was slightly wounded, in a place which was rocky and
precipitous — it was a corner with an old cave in the
background ; behind the great boulders the pig was
standing. There was no other way of reaching him
except on foot, for a horse could not have turned among
the rocks and would have been worse than useless.
Throwing his reins to his servant, S. walked towards
the boar, his syce calling out to him very encouragingly,
" Khabardar, sahib ! khabardar ! bar a khirab janwar / "
(" Take care, sahib ! take care ! very wicked animal ! ")
The pig's wicked little eyes were glued upon S.,
and as his enemy drew closer to him, he gathered
himself together, and, giving a savage grunt, charged
straight at S. From that position on the ground
his great head would seem to entirely cover his chest,
the rigid bristles of the neck tremble and heave in an
agony of rage, the great teeth snap, their foam squirts
in S.'s face. He comes ! And now is the time
to grasp the spear tight, bend forward, and send up

PigvSticking 31

a short prayer, for rarely in this life does a man face
deadlier risk than when he meets on foot the charge
of an Indian boar. What equals that deadly sickness
of a pulse-beat's length which comes over the doomed
shikari as his spear-point glides along, and not into,
the leathery shoulder of his foe ? It was practically
impossible for S. to spear him in front, for if he
attempted to do so, the spear would only strike his
head, be knocked up into the air, and the pig would
be upon him in a moment. The best, or almost
sole chance seemed to be to await his charge till
he should be within reach, and then to spring aside
and spear him as he rushed by ; but heavy riding-
boots and the hard ride only a few moments before
made this a risky business, and it would be difficult
to be quite quick enough. Long as descriptions
always seem, there must have been no time in reality
for thinking or hesitating, — in another moment the
boar was upon S. He took his chance, stood still,
and stood the charge — almost, it would seem, till
the pig was on the point of his spear ; then, as he
had planned, jumping aside, he ran the spear well
home into his ribs and heart. But it was more a
lucky fluke than anything.

A boar is full grown at five years old, but he fills
out till he is eight ; after nine years old his powers
begin to wane and his temper grows worse ; from
that time he is an ugly customer to meet. He may
live till he is sixteen or twenty, but he is then in
his dotage.

32 A Sportswoman in India

A spear should never be thrown at a pig like a
javelin ; all sorts of serious accidents have happened
through this being done. I know on one occasion
an enthusiastic griffin (as new arrivals from England
are called) hurled his spear at a pig which was
jinking in front of him, and the spear rebounding
off the iron ground, went into his horse above the
outside of the stifle on the off side, and came up with
the point projecting near the hip. With frantic kicks
the horse sent the spear flying some twenty feet into
the air, whence it came hurtling down among us all,
and it was the greatest mercy that it fell clear of
horses and riders.

I believe the wild boar is supposed to be the original
stock of our domestic breeds of swine : of course
they were well known here in our little England till
the reign of Henry II., when they seem to have
disappeared ; and King Charles I.'s project to restock
the New Forest with them turned out a failure.
William the Conqueror, a true sportsman, made any
man killing a pig liable to have his eyes put out.
Nowadays, in Europe and in Asia, wherever deep
recesses of forest and marshy ground are to be found,
wild boar abound. Vambery, in his journey through
Central Asia, found them in enormous numbers in
the extensive swamps of Turkestan. But India, and
India alone, is the land of pig-sticking. In the matter
of sport " the shiny East " has stood the test of
time better than any of her rivals. Once upon a time
America was equally attractive to the lover of shikar,

Pig'Sticking 33

but the fine old grizzlies, deer, and bison, have
come to be gradually wiped out, most effectively,
alas ! by the native " trappers " and others, for the
sake of their skins. South Africa was a serious rival,
but her day, although it has been a brilliant one, must
be confessed to have passed its best. Elephant, rhino,
and lion fall before the improved breechloaders ; and
the survivors, slow-breeding animals, fail to restock
the country in anything like adequate proportion to
the numbers slain. India is to the shikari still The
Land of Promise. But unless the great nullahs of
Kashmir are more strictly preserved, unless, throughout
the Central Provinces particularly, the native village
shikari is prevented from killing every head of game
he can lay his hands on, it only means a matter of
time for India to be " shot out."

Leaving Kapurthalah, we returned to Mian Mir,
just in time for a few terribly wet days.

It did come on to blow and rain to boot,
That Noah's flood was but a spoonful to't.

It was our first experience of Oriental rain, and the
mud, after it was all over, was a revelation. M.
and I were very anxious to go round Lahore native
city on an elephant, and finally the commissariat let
us have two hartis out of the lines, where I had
often seen them in their abnormally tall loose-boxes.
We drove to the city, along the main approach to
Lahore, a straight road like a bar of dusty iron, and
shaded by the dustiest of dusty tamarisk-trees, for

3

34 A Sportswoman in India

all the effect of the rain had passed off. Sleeping
men lay by the roadside in the unblinking sunlight,
looking like sheeted corpses. Ekka ponies in jingling
ekkas passed us, some of them driving "Tommy"
back to the cantonments ; they say an ekka is the
most wonderfully balanced contrivance in the world,
and the lightest vehicle ever made. Trains of grain-
carts were pushed and pulled on one side as we drove
by ; it is not all in a moment that the ponderous
white bullocks can be moved. One of them, par-
ticularly stupid and weary-eyed, lay down, and the
relentless wheels creaked slowly right over him, but
he got up none the worse. Some of them were resting,
lying down between the shafts, at the roadside, and
waking up at intervals to blow through their broad,
wet muzzles like grampuses.

Arrived at Lahore, not near the European quarters,
but at the gate of the old city, the elephants met us,
and we proceeded on them very slowly through one of
the quaintest places in the world. The little streets
were like so many ramifications in a gigantic ant-heap,
swarming with life — such business, such talking, on
either side houses piled one above each other, any way
and all ways, their flat roofs and balconies occupied
by picturesque natives smoking hookahs. The never-
to-be-forgotten smell of an Eastern bazaar and a great
Eastern city, the glaring sun, the pure and dazzling
colours, the superabundance of humans, form memories
which come back again and again. And behind all
that the eye sees, the Purdah women, the Eastern ways

Pig.Sticking 35

and Eastern life of which we know so little, steep such
a scene as this one in an interest born of mystery.

Leaving the elephants, we went over the fort which
was repaired by Akbar, and from it we saw Shahdra,
the mausoleum of Jehangir, Akbar's son. This building,
seen from the fort, is supposed to be architecturally
perfect, because the full and proper number of minarets
can be there seen by the faithful, and represent a
concrete example of the Mogul greatness. The palace
of Ranjit Singh was interesting, very gaudy in the
matter of interior frescoes. Ranjit Singh was the
founder of the Sikh Kingdom in the Punjab, and after
the fall of the Moguls he obtained from the Afghan
King the Governorship of Lahore. He organised the
Sikhs into an army under European officers, which
for steadiness and religious fervour has had no parallel
since the " Ironsides " of Cromwell. As I have said,
they were our backbone at the time of the Mutiny.
Ranjit died in 1839, having been ever loyal to the
English. At his funeral four wives and seven slave girls
were burnt with his body without a word of remon-
strance from the British Government, the four Ranees
burning themselves at their own desire from pride of
family and caste. Ranjit Singh was enormously wealthy,
and as he was dying he gave into the hands of the
Brahmins, as propitiation to the gods, treasure worth
a million sterling. The supposed infant son of Ranjit
and a dancing girl was recognised as Maharajah
Dhulip Singh, and when the British annexed the Punjab
in 1 849, owing to rebellion, he received an allowance

36 A Sportswoman in India

of £58,000 a year, on which he lived for many years
as an English country gentleman in Norfolk.

Lahore is interesting as having been for so long
the home of Rudyard Kipling. One can picture his
going over to the cantonments at Mian Mir and
learning the ways of Private Thomas Atkins as no
other man on the face of this earth knows them. As
head of the School of Art, he designed the Law Courts
— great, airy, massive buildings, full of rooms.

Before leaving Mian Mir we went for a delightful
moonlight picnic at the famous Shalimar Gardens, which
Shah Jehan (the builder of the Taj) considered "the
home of his emotions." Driving there in the twilight,
the gaudy sun having long disappeared, and a cool
freshness having begun to move the hot air, we strolled
through the dark, shady mango-trees, by the broad
stone tanks full of water, with fountains playing on
every side. The air was full of scents and silences.
Shah Jehan was evidently a man of perception. Later
on a band played, and we dined, a party of seventy,
in one of the great open stone halls overlooking the
gleaming, moonlit water.

CHAPTER II

PESHAWUR AND THE KHYBER PASS

A Day with the Peshawur Vale Hunt— The Native
City— Through the Khyber Pass— Lunch in
Camp on Active Service — General Hart's
Brigade — Ali Musjid— Khyber in Old Days.

37

CHAPTER II

PESHAWUR AND THE KHYBER PASS

Are those billions of men really gone ?

Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone ?

Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?

Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves ?

I believe of all those men and women that filled the unnamed lands,
every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible to us.

WALT WHITMAN.

BACK again in Mian Mir. It is itself a hideous
station and a most unhealthy one. Most of it
was originally an old Sikh burying-ground, and it is
now known as the " Graveyard of India." For this
reason it has not been made as much use of, as a
military station, as was at first intended. It possesses
a fine church, close to the General's house, where we
were staying, and an indifferent polo-ground.

The ordinary Tommies in India are much to be pitied :
people out there are very good to them, getting up
sports, matches, sing-songs, and so forth, and I have
heard it argued that they are quite " spoiled." At the
same time, they have no Society, and when a Tommy
wants to be lazy, when he wants to shake off a fit of
the " blue devils " and to be amused, to be anywhere
but in the sight of the eternal lines and the eternal

39

40 A Sportswoman in India

uniform and the fellow-Tommy he sees every day,

every hour of his life, where is he to go ? Where is

his Mary Ann ? Where is the friendly pub ? Where

are the lanes and the villages to saunter and gossip

in? Where are the shops, the omnibuses, the parks?

Instead of which, in his own words : " I'm a Tommy

— a blooming, eight-anna, dog-stealing Tommy, with a

number instead of a decent name. If I had stayed at

home I might ha' married that gal, and kept a little

shop in the 'Ammersmith 'Igh. 'PRACTICAL

TAXIDERMIST,' with a stuffed fox, like as they has in

the Aylesbury Dairies, in the window, and a little case

with blue and yellow glass eyes, and a little wife to

call * Shop — shop ' when the door-bell rung. I'm sick

to go 'ome — go 'ome — go 'ome. I'm sick for London

again; sick for the sounds and sights and smells of

her — orange peel ! and asphalte ! and gas ! sick for

Vauxhall Bridge, for the railway going down to Box

Hill, with your gal on your knee, and a new clay pipe

in your face — that, and the Strand lights, where you

knows every one, and the bobby that takes you up is

an old friend as has taken you up before. No more

blooming rotten-stone, nor khaki, nor guard-mounting,

and yourself your own master with a gal to take and

see the Humaners practising hooking dead corpses out

of the Serpentine on Sundays ; . . . instead of which here

I am, where there ain't no women, and there ain't no

liquor worth having, and there's nothing to do, nor

see, nor say, nor think, nor feel."

Of all God-forsaken spots to be quartered in, Mian

Pcshawur and the Khyber Pass 41

Mir must be one of the worst. To begin with, the
climate, cold in winter, cold enough for a log fire and
fur coats, becomes unbearably hot by the last week in
March, and develops into an oven later on.

As for the place itself, coming out to India and
expecting to see palms and cocoanut-trees, jungles and
tropical vegetation, I found — flat, brown plains, broken
in parts by cultivation or by dried-up, stunted bushes,
roads buried in thick white dust, and overhead a sun
which scorched and glared from morning to night
in a sky which never possessed a cloud upon its brazen
face. The lines stretch some distance in Mian Mir —
white, dazzling buildings ; brown flats of earth baked
like bricks reaching up to the walls and forming the
Tommies' " play-ground/' Besides the lines was the
hospital, also the dusty, grassless polo-ground, and the
little club, the garden of which was kept well watered.
Officers' bungalows on either side of roads which
were ruled across the station and shaded by that dusty
and tired-looking tree the tamarisk, completed Mian
Mir. The church, as I have said, is the feature of a
place which has nothing in it or round it to please
the eye, except flat, endless monotony, dust and heat.
The very bungalows themselves looked as though they
might have been built yesterday, the debris of building
hardly yet removed from the bare, brown compound,
edged by a mud wall and innocent of any suspicion
of green.

Nothing will grow without copious waterings, and
as the life of a soldier is one of many moves, few people

42 A Sportswoman in India

spend much over a garden which they may have to
leave at any time. India is never " home " : there
is no " home "to be proud of there, and to beautify.
In the General's garden there were hedges and bowers
of roses, and hundreds of pots of violets, all well
watered by an energetic mail ; but even they were
not like English ones, for they had no smell.

India has been summed up as a " land in which
everything smells except its flowers." In the early
morning one misses so the earthy smell, the exquisite,
moist, fresh scent of daybreak.

While we were at Mian Mir I drove one day into
Lahore with Miss , who was one of the house-
party, our principal object being to get some money

out of the bank. On our return Miss locked

the notes into her dressing-bag, meaning to settle
up some accounts the following day. What followed
should show every one the impossibility of trusting
native servants, unless they have been proved worthy.

Miss went upstairs at night as usual, undressed,

and was soon in bed, with Terry, her little terrier,
curled up on a rug on the floor near her. Suddenly
she heard a slight movement behind the curtain, and
then another ! Surely it could not be fancy ? — yet
Terry never stirred. She sat up in bed — why, the
curtains had moved and there was a space between,
through which the dim light shone ; and there
was something else — what was it ? A face — surely
not — not a human face, with glaring eyes ? Was
she dreaming ? She seized her match-box and hastily

Peshawur and the Khybcr Pass 43

struck a match — damp ! another — damp ! another !
She always put three out ready by the box. The
curtain shook ; something — what ! — came from
behind it — a noiseless step : it was a figure. In
the semi-darkness she sprang out of bed, and at the
same moment the figure of a native sprang forward

with a knife in his hand. . . . Miss , with a

good loud shriek and plenty of pluck, went straight
for him, and they grappled together near the wall ;
but her screams roused the house at once, and the
main object of the ruffian was to get off. He
cut her hand badly, and, breaking from her grasp,
dashed down a passage and through an open window,
out into the compound; an exciting chase followed,
and in the end he was caught by the servants. He
proved to be the cook's mate, and had, of course,
known of the money being taken out of the bank.
Little Terry had been drugged, which accounted for
his apathy and apparent deafness. The thought of
the man's having lain behind the curtain while

Miss undressed was an unpalatable one. He

was given — I forget how many years' — penal servitude
in Lahore Jail.

We drove over there one morning to see the
prisoners making carpets, eventually to be sold at
about a pound a square yard. Some of them, with
colours admirably blended, were magnificent ; others
were flaringly crude. The prisoners, with feet tied
as a rule, sat in rows at the big looms, twisting a
hundred balls of coloured wool.

44 A Sportswoman in India

On February i7th M. and I left Mian Mir and
went off to Peshawur, where we stayed with my
sister and her husband, W. R. Merk, C.S.I., who was
then Acting-Commissioner vice Sir Richard Udny.
From the flat roof of the Commissioner's bungalow,
the best bungalow in Peshawur, we had a fine view
of the whole country round, and at last saw in all
its reality the far-famed frontier, embodiment of a
word which had been printed as a newspaper heading
in England larger than any other word for months
past. The cantonments lay in front of us — to
the west ; the walled native city was behind us ;
the racecourse on our right ; while all round Peshawur
stretched a well-cultivated plain almost entirely bordered
by hills. Those lying on our right, particularly, and
those facing us, looked beautiful enough in the bright
sun, all the topmost peaks white with snow ; but as
we rode or drove nearer them the grey crags and
the dark defiles become defined, and mountain after
mountain assumes an impenetrable and a dreary aspect.

No one could live in Peshawur and be unconscious
of that Debatable Land only thirteen or fourteen miles
distant, nor help peopling with Afridis, Yusufzais, and
other hill tribes, those weird heights forming their
fastnesses which had been the scene of so many
struggles with the British. One little break in the
chain, the entrance to the Khyber, interested us more
than any other spot.

The Peshawur Vale is so much enclosed by moun-
tains that it is hardly odd that it should develop into

Pcshawur and the Khybcr Pass 45

a furnace later on. A dense yellow haze envelops
the place through the summer months — underneath
this pall Peshawur gradually stokes up to white heat ;
but through the winter it is one of the very best stations
to be in.

Of course we inspected the kennels of the Peshawur
Vale Hunt, and pronounced them excellent — in fact,
superior to some English ones ! And when offered a
mount apiece for a hunt that week, we most gladly
accepted.

The evening before found M. and myself, our host
and hostess, all, as the hands of " the enemy " neared
the hour of eleven, intimating our wish to retire ;
for we hunt to please, and there is no pleasure in
hunting with " a head " at 6 a.m. We were getting
quite accustomed to the unrest of an Indian night
and the barkings of the pariah dogs ; the incessant
chatter of the servants and the stamping of horses
no longer kept us awake and annoyed.

It seemed as though we had just put our heads
on the pillow, when, at a miserably early hour,
4.30 a.m., a dusky figure salaaming by the bedside
gradually separated itself from our dreams, and
assumed the fat and unwelcome form of our ayah.
Sleepily we tumble into our habits and buckle the
chin-strap of our sun-helmets.

Breakfast is ready in the dining-room, and we soon
find ourselves on the spot, with hot coffee, eggs,
and hump (a really good Punjab hump is bad to
beat).

46 A Sportswoman in India

As we turned out upon the verandah the air was
like needles, so keen that poshteem were the greatest
comforts, for we drove on to the meet, about four
miles. I brought my poshteen home, but, like most
of them, it was not well enough cured to last in
England ; besides which a sheepskin coat with the
wool inside, black astrachan collar and cuffs, and
embroidered all over in yellow, attracted a crowd
in this critical country.

Arrived at the meet, we found quite a large field,
and our own four syces on the look-out for us.
There was a great variety of horseflesh — walers,
Persians, Arabs, country-breds, and tats of all sorts,
as the term is in this country. A good pony is
as handy as anything else for this hunt, unless there
is weight to be carried.

The Master and two whips, in orthodox pink, were
on walers ; the kit of the rest of the field was distin-
guished by its sweet variety. As the sun would
be hot by 10 a.m., thin coats and sun-helmets were
de rigeur. No ambitious toilettes in snowy leathers,
spotless pink, and irreproachable top hats, but an
assortment of butcher boots of all shades of yellow
brown and black, and anything that would tuck into
them.

Naturally, the pack itself was not out of keeping
with its surroundings. Hounds cannot be imported
into India under £16 a couple, and so, once arrived
in the Shiny, good, bad, or indifferent are one and
all exceedingly precious, and as long as they can raise

Pcshawur and the Khybcr Pass 47

a trot cherished to the last. Many of them are gifts
from packs at home, and out of these drafts occasionally
a skirter, a mute runner, or a noisy one, is to be seen.
Miscellaneous they must be, immaculate never ; but the
P.V.H. has at the same time many virtues — it shows
capital sport, it affords endless fun, and it is without
exception the best hunt in India. Ootacamund is not
nearly as good a country, besides being short of jacks.

Our M.F.H. takes a look at the watch in his
wrist-strap — 6 a.m. sharp — one note on his horn, a
reminder from the whips, and the pack moves off down
a sandy road shaded with tamarisks.

There were half a dozen ladies out besides ourselves ;
one among them, the well-known Lady Harvey, looks
upon Peshawur as an Indian Melton, and brings her
stud there regularly every season ; in spite of her
short sight she went well. One good lady boasted
a lineless, peach-bloom complexion, which hurried her
home at the least sign of rain.

We jog along for a couple of miles, and almost
as soon as we reach the covert, a marshy jheel lying
in some delightfully fresh meadows, a ringing Tally
ho ! on the far side proclaims that a jack has already
gone away. A moment — while stirrup-leathers are
adjusted and solar topis strapped on, — and the field
is off, —

Here's a health to all hunters of every degree,
Whether clippers or craners or hill-top abiders ;

The man that hates hunting he won't do for me,
And ought to be pumped on by gentlemen riders.

48 A Sportswoman in India

The hounds are out at the far end of the jheel, and
streaming across the first few grass fields, the keen
air positively ringing for miles as they drive at their
jack through a thick bit of reeds on the edge of the
grass land.

What is scent ? is asked scores and scores of times.
Does the subtle essence float in the air breast-high,
or does the jack leave it behind him on the ground
he crosses, wherever a pad has touched? Or is it
neither, or both ? Those who hunt most know best
that the mysteries of scent are not to be fathomed.

But there is a scent this morning, and that is all
we care for. The Master, taking his horse by the
head, is crashing through the patch of dry reeds, over
the stubs, and scrambling through the straggling fence
which separates it from open country ; we follow as
best we can, our ponies blundering about, envying the
ease with which the M.F.H. on his clever waler got
over such ground.

Half the field now diverge to the right, the rest
of us going left-handed, with the Master's pink back
ahead. We were galloping over a spreading country,
some fields lying fallow, waiting to be sown, others
with their new crops ; the different fields were separated
by little ditches with a bank on either side, trappy
little places, and it was wonderful how cleverly most
of the tats flew them.

But all is not so easy and smooth as at first sight
it seems : the pack disappears for a moment beyond
a slight rise in the ground, with a corresponding fall,

Peshawur and the Khyber Pass 49

and when we are near enough to see what is happening,
a series of jumps — splashes — scrambles, and a marked
check in the hounds' pace, show that a brook of sorts
must lie down there.

The nearer we come the less we like it, for though
it proves to be jumpable, it is banked up high on either
side, and both take-off and landing are awkward and
slippery. A waler is soon floundering about in the
middle, several horses have refused it altogether, two
or three jump it standing, and get across more by luck
than management on to terra firma. Our M.F.H.
took a fall on the opposite side, and cantered off in the
wake of the pack with a muddy back.

After a good deal of scrambling, we four found
ourselves on the right side : the far-sightedness of
those of the field who had kept bearing away to the
right, where there was a bridge, became apparent.

We still streamed on merrily, and turning sharp
to the left we gained our first experience of riding over,
or rather through, paddy (rice) fields. It is grown,
so to speak, under water, by means of flooding the
low ground from brooks or tanks on a higher level ;
each little field is banked round in order to be more
or less independent of its neighbours, and 'the water
is let in or drained off, as the case may be, at the
native's will.

Sahibs wade and splash about all day in this mud
and water after snipe ; now we were called upon to
ride to hounds through it. The little banks and
ditches nearly hidden in " greenery " were terrible

4

5° A Sportswoman in India

pitfalls. An unfortunate lady whose pony " forgot
to jump " one of these grips was properly baptised
from head to toe in mud and water.

Some sound ground once more enabled us to get
on terms with the pack ; but even here, especially
when we got at all low down, there were traps for
the unwary, and again and again a soldier who knew
the country would shout a warning to others who,
like myself, had not ridden across it before.

Pit where the buffalo cooled his hide,

By the hot sun emptied and blistered and dried;

Log in the plume grass, hidden and lone ;

Dam where the earth-rat's mounds are strown ;

Cave in the bank where the sly stream steals ;

Aloe that stabs at the belly and heels ;

Jump if you dare on a steed untried —

Safer it is to go wide — go wide !

Hark from in front where the best men ride : —

" Pull to the off, boys ! Wide ! Go wide ! "

Again we were among crops and floundering on,
crawling over the little " bunds " or small banks, our
M.F.H. on his raking, yawing chestnut still going
great guns and heading the right-handed division, An
unseen hole put M. down in a soft, earthy bed,
but a good-natured man picked her up and held her
mount while she scrambled into her saddle.

Meanwhile, our jack was heading more towards
Peshawur ; and after pushing along over a few more
fields, we found ourselves in the peach-gardens, acres
and acres of orchard-like country. We ducked under
the boughs and rode between the trees as best we

Peshawur and the Khybcr Pass 51

could, till a friendly path came in sight ; hounds still
raiding along at top speed. We cantered down it,
when — horrors ! — the canal glistens in front of us —
too wide to think of jumping that. The hounds tail
over, one after another ; just to the right lies a
horrible little footbridge made of a few logs and
some earth — anything but " confidential " to look at.
I afterwards found these were nothing accounted of
in the P.V.H. Seeing several bold spirits venturing
across, and many more pushing to the fore, I hastened
up without loss of time, and following our second
whip, walked my pony slowly across. It was barely
two feet wide in one place, and shook all over ominously.
I would no more have thought of riding a hunter over
it at home than I would of jumping a telegraph wire.
Just as I was over, a vast splash rent the air ! — poor
Captain N., on a country-bred, had disappeared
from view, and with him a big piece of earth off
the side of the bridge, like a large bite out of a slice
of cake ! There was no time for condolence or chaff.
As soon as we saw the pair, with the help of a couple
of natives, on a fair way to getting out, we were off.

This bridge being useless, most of the field galloped
off down stream to find another ; but several thrusters
and one lady on an Arab pushed their horses down
the bank of the canal, plunged into it, swam across,
and with much difficulty scrambled out on the opposite
side, without a dry stitch on them.

We turned away from the peach-gardens by-and-
by, and were thankful to be in open country again,

52 A Sportswoman in India

with the quick-recurring little fences, which need a
handy horse with his hind legs well under him to be
successfully negotiated. Small as they are they begin
to bring frequent grief; the severity of the pace is
telling — surely it cannot last much longer, -unless jacks
are endowed with the nine lives of a cat.

The hounds are tailing now, spreading out over the
country like a comet and coming to a head in a single
point ; but there is such a scent that Ranger, Bonnybell,
and Dauntless are still straining every nerve.

Into a grass field now, and across it we gallop ; my
eye was on our first whip, who was pulling his horse
together, while everybody else except the lady on
the Arab turned off for a road and bridge which lay
through the hedge to the right. These two galloped
abreast down the field, downhill, at what was apparently
a big ditch at the bottom. Landing on the farther
side, another yawning chasm faced them, and having
thrown themselves over that, there remained still a
third.

" One of our gridirons ! — the seven sisters ! " some
one said.

And there really were seven parallel dykes, with big
banks between them.

All glory be to the lady and her good mare, for
by some extraordinary skill they picked their way over
each " grave," and landing on the little sound bit of
turf between, neatly slipped over the next, jumping
lightly, to an inch, on to the narrow bank, and so on
over the whole seven. Vainly the whip alongside was

Peshawur and the Khybcr Pass 53

trying to do ditto ; at number three there was a crash,
his horse was fairly on his back in the bottom of the
dyke, and a pink coat was clinging desperately to the
top of the bank.

On over the bridge the rest of us flew, and as we
rise the opposite side we view our jack not fifty yards
in front of the leading hounds. Tally ho ! yonder
he goes !

There is a scream for the good of the hard-working
pack, as well as for the field's own enthusiasm. Now
he gains a small plantation and baffles hounds for a
moment ; now they are all but on him ; but no — he
slips out of Ranger's jaws and saves his skin. Only
for a moment. Bonnybell and Dauntless are upon
him, his gallant legs fail and his head is swimming — a
last effort, and he is no more. . . . Who-whoop ! . . .
Up come the panting hounds, and while the last
obsequies are performed we jump off, loosen our girths,
and breathe our mounts. They look as though they
want it, especially some of the smaller ponies, who have
been hustled along faster than they like. It reminds
one of —

Ride with an idle whip, ride with an unused heel,
But once in a way there will come a day
When the colt must be taught to feel

The lash that falls, and the curb that galls, and the sting
of the ro welled steel."

It was a seven-mile point, and we had come round-
about, time a little over an hour : what more do you
want ? At any rate, a good many of us felt we had

54 A Sportswoman in India

had enough for one morning, or that at least the ponies
had, and were therefore contented to hark quietly back
along the road to Peshawur, under the sun which was
even at that early hour beginning to feel hot.

At home — by which I mean in England — after a
good day's hunt, when an acceptable dinner has come
to an end, we sink into the depths of the best-cushioned
arm-chair, and in the warm firelight gallop once more
across the grass country of fancy, and jump with
consummate ease the vast fences which invariably
enclose the happy hunting-grounds of dreams. Though
we do things differently in the Shiny, they do not
compare so ill after all with the old originals ; and that
morning in Peshawur was quite a thing not to be
forgotten, when, after discussing a very solid breakfast,
we all found ourselves stretched in long cane chairs
outside in the shady bungalow garden, among scented
orange-trees and great palms, with iced drinks at
our elbows, discussing the whole morning's ride from
first to last, and reading each his English mail, which
was just in. Then towards tea-time we strolled down
to the club for tennis and racquets, loafing and
coffee, meeting together again — once more the self-
same party who only a few hours before had ridden
together, fallen together, cursed and admired each
other, followed and led one another after the best
pack of hounds in Asia. The band played gaily
while Society gossiped ; all the latest home papers
were read, and the tennis-courts were in great request.
By-and-by '* God save the Queen." (I wonder how

Pcshawur and the Khybcr Pass 55

many times in one day in the whole of India it is
played.) We drove back to dinner feeling there might
be worse places in the world than Peshawur in the
spring.

There are few more interesting sights than its native
city, which on account of its position upon the frontier,
surrounded by such varied types of humanity, is,
among all Indian native cities, unique. India, unlike
England, has few large towns. For instance, in
England and Wales, in 1891, more than half the
population lived in towns with upwards of twenty
thousand inhabitants, while in British India less than
one-twentieth of the people lived in such towns.
India, therefore, is almost entirely a rural country, and
many of the so-called towns are mere groups of
villages, in the midst of which the cattle are driven
afield, and ploughing and reaping go on. Many
millions of peasants struggle to live off half an
acre apiece, or one thousand two hundred and eighty
to the square mile ; for the peasant clings to his
fields and parcels them out among his children, even
when his family is too numerous to live upon the
crops, instead of migrating to tracts where spare
land abounds. If the rain falls short by a few
inches, the result is one of those terrible famines of
which we have heard so much lately. However,
Peshawur is an important city of eighty thousand
inhabitants, walled-in and fortified.

We drove in at one of the few gates, and were
struck dumb with the infinitely picturesque scene.

56 A Sportswoman in India

Before us stretched a street crammed with natives,
all walking, all talking, all dressed in white and
scarlet and blue and yellow — every conceivable
colour. Sikhs, Afridis, Afghans, Yusufzaies, Pathans,
Hindoos, Mohammedans, all meet in Peshawur. Most
of them are armed, with quaint knives and what
not concealed in their draperies. One realises at
once what it is to be the only Englishwoman among
thousands of natives. Every eye is on you — not
rude nor staring, but you feel eyes everywhere ; and
you begin to realise that were there no cantonments
outside, you would probably have one of the many
knives in your back, — which reflection puts you on
your mettle. The secret of the British power in the
East is that they have no fear.

The fascinating bazaars on either side held the
native sellers and their workmen ; we bought some
of their quaint waxwork, and slippers of all colours
with turned-up toes ; farther on carpets and saddle-
bags and poshteens were to be had ; the silver was
of a very rough description.

I have never seen such a veritable rabbit-warren
of humanity as Peshawur native city : the little mud-
coloured, flat-roofed houses seemed as though they
could not get near enough one another, and were
piled and squeezed into every atom of space, tier
after tier, gallery after gallery ; and from those down
the street hung out carpets, silks, embroideries,
forming a carnival of colour which would satisfy the
most thirsty soul, waving above the strange Oriental

STREET IN PESHAWUR.

Pcshawur and the Khyber Pass 57

throng below, and flashing and fading into the dazzling
blue sky.

To be back once more in the cantonments was
to feel so near and yet so far from that unique city,
the hum of which could always be heard even in our
bungalow. But Peshawur was not a quiet spot in
those days : it was crammed with troops, who were
still waiting till all the tribes should have sent in
their submission, and paid their fines in rifles ; from
morning till evening we could hear distant sounds
of various bands, and bugle calls.

In the early spring it is a charming station, and
after Mian Mir appeared a paradise. Every com-
pound was filled with orange blossom ; every bunga-
low hedge was made of roses in full bloom ; orchards
of pink peach blossom stretched for miles round the
lines ; the scent was intoxicating and overpowering
— perfumed Peshawur. The trim lawns on either
side the Mall, well shaded, were gay with flower
beds ; here and there a bungalow was half-hidden
in creepers ; and behind them all stretched the lines.
Cantonments all over India vary but little : the ever-
lasting native strolls down the roads ; the ever-
lasting mem-sahib goes out calling under a sun
umbrella ; the everlasting cool-looking subaltern
drives in the same cart, same pony, same terrier
running behind ! Three more months and the whole
place would be deserted, except in the evenings, when
the white-faced sahibs who cannot get up to the hills
meet to while away the stifling hours in the club.

5 8 A Sportswoman in India

We were most anxious to go up the Khyber Pass,
but every one told us that it was impossible till peace
was concluded ; however, Sir William Lockhart was
of course omnipotent, and he finally wrote to say that
he had ordered an escort to be ready at 9 a.m. at
Jamrud on the following day, and that General Hart
at Ali Musjid would expect us to breakfast and lunch.
But he stipulated that, as there was " a minimum of
danger," we should wire first for Mr. Merk's leave.
The latter happened to be away, but his answer to
my sister's telegram was satisfactory. c< Go with my
blessing." So March 22nd, at 7.30 a.m., saw us
driving through cantonments in a turn-turn with a
pair of grey tats.

Across nine or ten miles of flat plain, and finally
over the border, we drove till we reached Jamrud
Fort, a building of light brown mud, with a cara-
vanserai and a parade-ground. We had passed an
immense amount of transport on the road, strings
and strings of mules and camels, carrying grain and
provisions for the troops up at the front. In the
transport lines near Peshawur there were no fewer
than five thousand camels alone. Aggravating though
the wretched oonts may be, it was impossible not to
pity them and the poor mules, whose bones were
bleaching on many a roadside round Peshawur ;
starved and out of condition, the sufferings among
the transport animals form quite one of the worst
sides of the war. For this Frontier Expedition,
Government had had to lay their hands on thirty

CAMP BELOW ALT MUSJID.

[Page 58.

Peshawur and the Khybcr Pass 59

thousand ponies in a week ; half of them were in a
wretched state to start with, and quite unfit to with-
stand the cold they encountered. The camels could
get no proper food up among the mountains, and
they succumbed in hundreds. We passed many of
them, their loads having been removed, left to die
by the roadside.

But to return to Jamrud : it stands at the foot of
the mountains which surround the plain of Peshawur, a
sort of initial letter at the entrance to the Khyber Pass.

We were met by Major Cooke-Collis, and taken
over the fort, which is itself actually in Afridi
country by three miles. Here the unfortunate 4th
Dragoon Guards had sweltered all the preceding
summer and autumn months, in a spot which is
literally nothing but rocks and stones, off which,
like so much fire-brick, the sun must blaze. On the
walls of the mess-room the black-and-white drawings
from " Alice in Wonderland " are excellent, and must
have successfully whiled away somebody's time.

We had, however, little time to spend in admiration,
for no one was allowed in the pass after 3.30 p.m. It
was not long since Sir Havelock Allen, wandering
off it by himself, was shot, a short distance from the
road, by the Afridis : we were the first women who
had been up at all since the war broke out.

As we trotted off from Jamrud, our escort from
the 9th Bengal Cavalry joined us, four in front, one
on either side of our cart, and six behind, all jingling
along together.

60 A Sportswoman in India

Closer we drew to the dreary, frowning mountains,
the road rising gradually, till at last we were threading
our way through the most rough-and-tumble hills
ever seen. The road lay sometimes far above us,
sometimes below us, as the case might be, snaking
its way between high precipices and overhanging cliffs,
and twisting round corners which required very skilful
driving. It dawned upon us with what ease a
regiment could be hopelessly cut off and shot down
in those winding defiles and steep chasms, especially
late in the day, when it was dusk.

England has not forgotten the sad tale of General
Elphinstone's little army in 1842, whom the Afghans
had sworn to see safely leave the country. These
treacherous natives surrounded them in a little pass
not more than forty feet wide, and from the heights
above shot them down and hurled stones upon them.
The survivors perished of cold and want ; all except
three men, who alone escaped alive. Of these, two
were murdered at Futteeabad, and one man — one only
— lived to tell the tale. Dr. Brydon, alone, worn out
with fatigue, starvation, and wounds, grasping in his
right hand the hilt of his broken sword, and leaning,
rather than sitting, on a miserable, dead-beat pony, rode
into Jellalabad, the only survivor of the Kabul Army.

It is impossible to go through the Khyber Pass
without memories such as these crowding into the
brain. The lifeless, wind-swept mountains, with their
stunted tufts of vegetation fading in the wastes of sand,
call up picture after picture of the past.

Peshawur and the Khyber Pass 61

The Khyber has been well named The Gate of India,
for the road through it and over the Bamian Pass
is the only route which is practicable for artillery across
that vast wall of mountains between Burmah and
Beloochistan, a distance of three thousand five hundred
miles. The great Napoleon's dearest desire was to
lead an army through Persia, by way of Herat, into
India. It was not to be ; but as we drive along visions
rise before us of other conquerors and their armies,
whom from the furthermost ages these mountain
heights ihave seen, countless hosts, streaming along
the selfsame road our tats are trotting down now.

There was Nadir Shah, the Persian monarch, who
swooped down on India with his destroying legions
in 1739, anc^ returned through the Khyber, after sacking
Delhi, with a booty estimated at thirty-two millions
sterling, and the great Koh-i-Noor diamond. Having
observed the magnificent jewel glittering in the
puggaree of the fallen Mogul monarch — himself the
son of a sheepskin cap-maker — he suggested to his
royal captive that they should exchange turbans.

Long before Nadir Shah's day, in 327 B.C. another
army wound down the Khyber, fair Greeks and
Macedonians, led by Alexander the Great. Earlier
still, before Mohammedanism or Christianity were
thought of, Tartars, Persians, and Afghans trooped
down to their conquests and plunder in India, inter-
mingled with caravans of traders, and religious
pilgrims from Thibet, Tartary, China, and Siberia,
on their way to worship at the holy places of

62 A Sportswoman in India

Buddhism. Further back still, there is a misty out-
line of an invasion by an army of Darius, King of
Persia.

There has never been any tide of conquest and
emigration out of India ; what has gone out, and
particularly by this pass, was wealth immeasurable
and inconceivable, and one great religion : a wealth
over which nations have squabbled from time im-
memorial ; a religion which once influenced millions,
and which is now in —

that last drear mood
Of envious sloth and proud decrepitude,
While . . . whining for dead gods that cannot save,
The toothless systems shiver to their grave.

As we drove along we soon began to meet whole
families of Kabulees coming down the pass, with
their shaggy Bokhara camels and heavily laden
saddle-bags full of carpets, spice, and various Eastern
merchandise. Little Afghan children were tied in
foshteens to the saddle-bags, their heads jerking and
bobbing backwards and forwards at every stride.

The Afghans themselves claim their descent from
the Israelites, and hold that they are the representa-
tives of part of the lost Ten Tribes, who never
returned from the Assyrian Captivity into which
they were carried by.Tiglath Pileser, 721 B.C. The
Kashmiris also claim the same ; the competitors, in
fact, are many and various, and a cataract of nine-
teenth-century ink has flowed in vain in the cause

THE KHYBER PASS.

[Page 62.

Pcshawur and the Khybcr Pass 63

of a subject which never has been and never will
be satisfactorily proved.

These Afghans with the khaileefa — as a company
of camels and merchandise is called — were armed
some of them with Persian hiked swords and with
matchlocks called jesails, the stocks of which are
strange-looking hooks, shaped like a sickle, and
intended to fit under the arms. Low sheepskin
caps they all wore, and rather gay-coloured clothes,
contrasting with the dark, keen, ruffian-like faces.

Now horses hate camels ; as we drove up and
met the long train, with the great, slow, swinging
bodies of the camels and their broad, cumbersome
loads reaching half-way across the road, their long,
inquisitive necks stretching over the remaining half,
the ponies hesitated, and required much coaxing and
gentle persuasion to be made to go at all. I ought
by rights to have pulled up and made the khaileefa
take the outside of the road, instead of taking it
ourselves ; for there was no protection whatever at
the edge, which dropped straight down, a steep
bank ending in a precipice. The camels, one after
another, hugged the high cliff on the opposite side ;
we got on very well till we were somewhere in the
middle of the never-ending stream, and then one camel,
particularly " nasty " and supercilious-looking, taller
than the rest, and taking up still more room as
regarded his load, suddenly swung right across the
road in a menacing manner. Before I could do any-
thing the ponies dashed to the opposite side, wild with

64 A Sportswoman in India

fright, and began backing the cart over the edge !
Appalling moment ! No whip or voice was of the
slightest use. I remember the thought flashing through
my mind that the others were amazingly cool, as the
wheels neared the edge of the precipice. That which
takes a moment to read happened in a second of time.
Another instant, and the ponies seemed to rise up in
the air and the cart to fall under our feet ! — we
tumbled out on either side into the arms of some of
the Afghan camel-drivers ; at the same time our syce
and others seemed to get hold of the cart and ponies,
and to haul them back into the road. And thus
most providentially was a very serious accident averted.

We drove on, winding round the rocks, until at last
Fort Maude towered above us, its blackened and
ruined walls a disgrace indeed to the British Govern-
ment, who, in spite of every warning, refused to send
troops up to it and to AH Musjid in time to prevent
the fatal catastrophe and loss of prestige which occurred
when the Afridis overpowered the Khyber Rifles and
burnt and sacked both forts.

We met a few Afridis on the road — tall, athletic
highlanders, lean and muscular, with high noses and
cheek-bones, fair complexions, and long, gaunt faces ;
a tribe of brave robbers, but only possessed of the
honour which exists among thieves. Excellent marks-
men and nimble and hardy as mountain goats, they
picked our men off from behind the crags, and then
moved up the mountains at a long, slow, wolf-like
trot — a characteristic point about the Afridis.

Peshawur and the Khybcr Pass 65

Below Fort Maude was a little valley, a green patch
watered by a streamlet, over which a primitive mill had
been put up — Lala China; where in 1878 Cavagnari
met Sher Ali's officer and received a reply which was
the cause of our war with Afghanistan.

The Russian frontier question has not been shelved
yet ; our borderland and Afghanistan are full of no
common interest, and may yet be the theatre of one
of Britain's last wars. It is well worth while to
recall past events, in the face of the old saying that
" History repeats itself," a saying which never had a
greater chance of verification than it has now among
the hill tribesmen, whose rate of civilisation, of pro-
gression, is practically nil. Will it be too unin-
teresting to look back upon our old disagreements
with Russia, our old battles with the Afghans, our
perilous marches across this frontier, when what has
been shall so likely be again ?

On the report in 1877 that a Russian envoy was
about to visit Kabul, our Viceroy, Lord Lytton,
announced his intention to the Amir — Sher Ali —
of sending a British mission there, under General
Sir Nevile Chamberlain. However, the Russian
General, Stolietoff by name, informed the Amir
that the simultaneous presence of two embassies
would not be convenient. The Amir therefore refused
to allow the British mission to enter Afghanistan ;
but as he did not communicate direct with the
Viceroy, it had already started and arrived at the
Khyber. Here Sir Nevile Chamberlain deputed

5

66 A Sportswoman in India

Major Louis Cavagnari to ride up the pass and
demand leave for the mission to enter it. Down
by this same little mill which we had just seen,
Cavagnari met the commander of the Afghan troops,
who flatly refused permission, and added that, but
for his personal friendship with Cavagnari, he would,
in obedience to the Amir's orders, have shot down
both himself and his escort.

War was immediately declared ; and eventually
Lord Roberts, after hard fighting and untold diffi-
culties with transport in that mountainous, desolate
region, saved the position and entered Kabul. Sher
All and that hornets' nest, the Russian mission,
had fled to Turkestan, where the Amir died ; his
son Yukub Khan, assuming the government, arranged
and signed a treaty with the British, principally
through the consummate skill and diplomacy ot
Cavagnari.

A British representative was to reside in Kabul,
and this same able administrator, now Sir Louis,
was given the appointment. He arrived at Lord
Roberts's camp in Kurram in July 1879, an<^ ne sPent
that evening with the great General, whose own heart
was full of gloomy forebodings. Peace had been
signed all too quickly, the Afghans were by no
means crushed, and Lord Roberts had terrible fears
for the friend who was going beyond England's reach
into the heart of a treacherous and implacable enemy.

Sir Louis Cavagnari himself was hopeful as ever,
and spoke of his wife's joining him in Kabul in the

Peshawur and the Khyber Pass 67

spring ; but that farewell dinner was a sad one,
and when at its conclusion " The Queen " had been
drunk, Lord Roberts could hardly find words in which
to propose Cavagnari's health.

Next morning they both rode out of the camp
together, and in the valley took leave of each other,
Cavagnari setting forth on that fateful mission ; but
they had only ridden a few yards along their different
roads before an unaccountable impulse made them
simultaneously turn round, ride back, shake hands
once more, and part — for ever.

Only two months later all India was struck aghast
at the awful news of the massacre of Sir Louis
Cavagnari and his staff at Kabul.

Once more Lord Roberts, after much fighting,
entered the capital of Afghanistan. The walls of the
Residency were pitted with bullets and drenched with
blood, but no traces of the bodies of the Englishmen,
who must have died so hard, were ever found.

O you Members of Parliament who live quietly
at home ! you wire-pullers of the greatest nation in
the world ! does it ever repent you of the lives
you have sacrificed in remote regions at the altar of
your god, Party Power ? You cut down expenses, you
tie the hands of able men on the spot, and then you
regret that England's prestige is trailed in the dust,
and the blood of her gallant men wantonly shed.

To conclude : Yukub Khan abdicated, and was
sent into India. Abdur Rahman was nominated in
August, 1880, Amir of Afghanistan, where he still

68 A Sportswoman in India

reigns. The British Government presented him with
ten lakhs of rupees, twenty thousand breech-loading
rifles, a heavy battery of four guns and two howitzers,
a mountain battery, and a liberal supply of ammunition.

What is wanted on the Indian frontier are roads
and railways — pioneers of civilisation — which would
bring the Afghans and the hill tribesmen into direct
contact with the English. Hatred and misunder-
standings, which arise first and foremost from the
difference of race, can only be eradicated by mutual
knowledge. If trade between the nations were to
increase, the isolation of the Afghans, the Afridis,
and other tribes, and our bitter conflicts, would become
things of the past. As it is, if India were to-morrow
invaded by an army from the north, that army would
be joined by every one of the two hundred thousand
warlike tribesmen.

Why were all the warnings about Merv unheeded,
and called by a distinguished politician of the day
" Merv-ousness " ? A little later and they were
verified. SkobelofFs victories over the Tekke mountains
gave Merv and Sarakka into the hands of the Russians,
and Turkestan was in direct communication with
St. Petersburg. This enabled the Russians practically
to dictate terms to the Boundary Commission which
the British Government sent to define the northern
limits of Afghanistan, and to turn out an Afghan
garrison from Punjdeh under the eyes of the British
officers.

Why was it possible for the Amir to say that

Pcshawur and the Khyber Pass 69

he had warned us repeatedly of the advance of
Russia, but that no attention had been paid to his
warnings, owing to the strife of parties in England,
and to the excessive caution of the British Government ?
To return to our drive. We passed the spot
where Sir Havelock Allen rode off the road and
was shot, and at last arrived at Ali Musjid Fort,
which the Afridis had sacked. Below its ruins and
well down in the hollow of the hills lay General Hart's
brigade — an unwonted sight in the Khyber Pass.

Whose are the khaki tents that crowd the way,
Where all was waste and silent yesterday?
This City of War, which in a few short hours
Hath sprung up here?

We began to hear the hum of the camp and sounds
of life from the little bazaar which had already
grown up among the camp-followers.

General Hart met us, and apologising for the
roughness of everything, took us past the Post Office
tent and the officers' mess into his own quarters.
Who would look for luxuries in a camp on active
service ? But it was quite a luxurious lunch which
we sat down to later on, each lady shedding the
light of her countenance at a separate table, the first
womenkind who had been seen since the force started
on its expedition.

We sat on big square sacks of gram (corn), and
of course a good many things, such as wine-glasses and
salt-cellars, were non-existent ; but we had a most

yo A Sportswoman in India

cheery lunch, drank all sorts of toasts, and heard and
told all sorts of news.

The officers' own individual tents struck us a good
deal : the best way in was on all fours, for they were
only high enough, long enough, and wide enough for a
man to lie comfortably at full length. The Tommies
were not provided with one of these little khaki graves
apiece ; but slept sixteen in a large tent, with their
rifles rolled up inside their blankets with them. The
Afridis and Pathans are wonderful rifle thieves, and
love a rifle better than their own souls. In spite of
sentries, hardly a night passed without their visiting
the camp, and drawing revolvers from underneath
pillows, rifles almost out of the sleeping men's very
arms, and disappearing with their booty.

The troops at Ali Musjid had begun to play hockey,
in default of any other sort of recreation, and had
had a match against Jamrud. But it was already
getting hot, and later on, when our troops were still
quartered there, the number of deaths among them
was appalling. The sun-scorched valley was fitly
named by the Tommies " Helly Musjid" In the
winter it had been bitterly cold : General Hart told
us their average for tubs was one in eleven days, and
most of the officers found it resulted in a cold. Spring
brought freezing, piercing winds, which whistled un-
mercifully down the valley, as down a funnel ; to be
succeeded later on by a hot wind, which, if the other
had flayed ofF every particle of skin, burnt and dried
and covered with sand all that was left on the bones.

A RIFLE THIEF.

[Page 70.

Peshawur and the Khyber Pass 71

Arithmetic on the frontier is a one-sided affair ; as
Rudyard Kipling says, there is not only the chance
of being "potted" at at any moment from behind
a rock during —

A scrimmage in a border station —
A canter down some dark defile —

Ten thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jesail —

The crammer's boast, the squadron's pride,

Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

but dysentery and enteric combine to pile up heavy
odds against Tommy : few at home realised how many
that summer, in the Bara Valley, at Ali Musjid, and in
other camps on the frontier, might have said, —

We've the fever here in camp — it's worse than forty fights ;
We're dying in the wilderness the same as Israelites ;
It's before us and behind us, and we cannot get away,
And the doctor's just reported — five more deaths to-day.

While we were finishing lunch a conjuror — a real
juggler — appeared, one of the camp-followers, and
squatting down on the ground, wearing nothing except
a loin-cloth and his turban, with therefore no possibility
of concealment, began his tricks. He picked a small
twig off one of the stunted bushes which was withering
under the sun near us, ran his fingers down it, stripping
off the leaves — small leaves like those of a sensitive
plant — and then proceeded to shower them down among
us, but not alone ! — with 'the leaves came great live
scorpions ; not little things like Italian scorpions, but

72 A Sportswoman in India

formidable animals almost as long as my hand. We
did not fall in love with this creeping company, so
he gathered them up, crumpled them one by one in
his hand, and they disappeared ! Then he waved his
thin, bare arms in the air, and a live cobra appeared
to drop into one hand. Its fangs had been extracted,
and he threw it into the midst of us. But how he
did these extraordinary feats I have not the faintest
idea.

After this lively entertainment we had to hurry
away to ride up to the charred ruins of the fort with
Captain Anderson and Captain Bruce, on a couple of
ponies they had provided. It was a stiff climb, but
the view both up and down the pass was fine, and
looking down on to the little camp, with its regular
lines of tents and pathways between marked out with
white stones, much incident was mutely expressed.
But the view we had was afterwards from the top of
one of the hills near the fort ; it was a panorama.
Afghanistan, the land of mystery and treachery, lay
before us in the far distance, and the Kabul River
wound like a grey thread across the plain.

Ford — ford— ford o} Kabul River—
'Cross the Kabul River in the dark. . . .

Visions of the disastrous fording of that river by
the loth Hussars rose up before one. It was one
night in March, 1879, that a squadron was ordered
to cross and surprise the enemy. The ford was
nothing more than a sandbank, and splashing along

Pcshawur and the Khyber Pass 73

in the dark they made the fatal mistake of bearing
too much downstream. Suddenly the first man's horse
was in deep water and struggling for life — the bank
was lost. One after another, exactly like a flock of
sheep, the squadron rode over the edge. In the dark-
ness and confusion no man knew what was happening,
nor that they had lost the ford. Nineteen men and
a great many horses were drowned ; an Indian river
is a wide swim.

The tragedies of this tragic land were on every
side. India has been dearly bought, and we have
not yet ceased our payment.

The pickets on the hills on all sides, for which
General Hart was noted, reminded us that we had
to pass by a certain time our picket at Fort Maude,
and at the same time show our pass. We tore our-
selves away from our hospitable entertainers, drove
off, and ended a memorable day, not only in a most
famous pass, but also in a camp on active service.

CHAPTER III

FROM DALHOUSIE INTO CHAMBA

Up to the Hills— Dalhousie— Leopards— The Rains-
Expedition into Chamba— Monkeys— Kudjiar—
Rajah of Chamba — Arrangements (bundobusl)
for our Shoot.

75

CHAPTER III

FROM DALHOUSIE INTO CHAMBA.

ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDER-LOG (MONKEYS).

Here we go in a flung festoon,

Half-way up to the jealous moon !

Don't you envy our pranceful bands ?

Don't you wish you had extra hands ?

Wouldn't you like if your tails were — so —

Curved in the shape of a Cupid's bow ?
Now you're angry, but — never mind,
Brother ; thy tail hangs down behind !

RUDYARD KIPLING.

OUR visit to Peshawur over, we went back
again to Mian Mir before going up to the
hills with Sir George Wolseley. Mian Mir was, as
they say, " stoking up " by that time, and from
breakfast till tea-time the bungalow was entirely shut
up to keep out the hot air ; every wooden shutter
was closed, and there was not sufficient light in the
rooms for painting, for instance, in spite of all the
hours to be whiled away. Those hours began after a
late breakfast ; we got up and rode about seven o'clock,
fortified with chota hazri, until the sun drove us in,
where one was bound to remain till after tea.

Lunch was a thing unsought for in the hot weather :
the General and his aide-de-camp had their work to

77

7 8 A Sportswoman in India

do in their respective rooms, and the rest of us slept
and read and wrote. Tennis always followed after tea.
India ought to possess twilight, but unfortunately the
capacity for doing anything by halves has been denied
her; the sun sinks — goes out — like a lamp extin-
guished, and we almost groped about for the net and
balls just as it had become cool and pleasant for
playing !

One thing I like now to recall at Mian Mir — the
creaking of the water-wheel in the garden, worked by
plodding oxen, hour after hour, all through the hot,
slow, sleepy, silent day. How often that drowsy
slumber-song carried one over the Borderland and
through the Divine Gates ! I hear it now, complaining,
monotonous, and essentially tired ; I have never tried
to listen to a sleepier sound. With noiseless movements
the servants passed like shadows through the quiet,
dark rooms, the only sound they made the rustle of
the curtains which divide room from room. Outside,
the sunlight was garish in its intensity, and the burnt
compound glared. And it was to this we said our
adieus on April 6th and proceeded to the hills, where
we met with not a few adventures.

The platform at Mian Mir station the evening we
left was crowded with natives in white and coloured,
clean and dirty garments, frantically jostling each other
and chattering in the sun. As a native goes down
casually to the station and waits the rest of the day
and all night until his proper train leaves on the
following morning, most of these had probably slept

From Dalhousic into Chamba 79

in and about the station. Strange in the hands of
a native servant does one's luggage soon become ;
an ayah forgets to pack much, and at the last moment
she wraps in towels, pinned together, half the contents
of one's drawers. Interesting relics of this sort I
recognised on the platform among polo-sticks, gun-
cases, rolls of bedding, sun-helmets, and what not.
Our dhobiy the washerman, went with us, and as
he jostled among the throng a flat-iron tumbled out
of the bundle tied up in one of our sheets upon his
back, in which he carried all our washing " kit," and
his own food, cooking-pan, and spare garment.

It was a hot journey : we dined at Umritzer station
and had a short night, for we were called at 2 a.m. the
following morning. Sir George was anxious to start
early ; and having dressed by the light of the railway
oil, we struggled out of the train, yawning, on to the
platform. Tongas and bullock-carts were waiting
under the stars in the dark road, and were eventually
packed by a much tried aide-de-camp. We were off,
and if sleepy, it was at least cool.

Dawn broke to find us still driving uphill through a
rough scrub country ; the plains began to lie below us,
and in front lay the zigzag outline of the Dalhousie
hills. We changed with each other from the back to
the front seats of the tonga for the satisfaction of being
jolted and bruised upon some fresh bone ; but in spite
of the lack of springs we nearly dropped off to sleep
when the sun grew hot. A dak bungalow at last
raised every one's spirits. Ponies which we had sent

8o A Sportswoman in India

on were waiting ; and after having breakfasted and
changed into riding things, we started off to ride to
that night's destination — Mahmool.

Do not, I advise you, follow this example, nor be so
weak as to start at the hottest time of day, and ride
continually, up and up, by a narrow, stony path, rocks,
scrub, stones, on either side, off which the sun blazes
without mercy, and every stone radiates hot air like
an oven.

We rode — at a walk — hour after hour, climbing
steadily. The last thing a woman ought to have
ridden on was a side-saddle, which is invariably un-
comfortable for herself and her horse uphill. Mine
slipped on the Arab pony continually, until at last,
from sheer discomfort, I rode on it crossways.

The bungalow at Mahmool dawned upon a frizzled
and short-tempered party. It was a lovely spot half-
way up the hills, but it was not until much u shut eye "
had been indulged in, until dinner had been laid out-of-
doors in the evening, that the place was appreciated.

The next morning breakfast in the verandah, and a
ride along a shady, winding path up to Dalhousie, has
only pleasant recollections. We were under trees,
crossing streams where the ponies wallowed their heads
in the ice-cold water, and at every turn had views of
the great blue plains^ far below us. Our ayah swung
along in an extemporised dhooli ; Ruffles, an invalid
Irish terrier, had another all to himself, borne by two
natives ; the luggage was carried up on coolies' backs.
We stopped for tiffin half-way, brought in a basket

From Dalhousic into Chamba 81

by a native ; the ponies cropped at the edge of the
path while we sat in the shade.

Up and ever upwards we still climbed for the rest
of the afternoon, until at last the long-expected
Dalhousie, and Strawberry Bank Cottage, our own
special destination, was before us. Narrow roads —
malls — dissect Dalhousie ; which malls have bungalows
on either hand, above and below, whenever the khud
— the slope — has a level spot. The malls are too
narrow and dangerous for driving, or even for fast
riding, on account of the corners and precipices. Most
of the womenkind appeared to enjoy themselves in
dandies — chairs carried by four natives — and we met
them as one meets the same people at the seaside,
day after day, paying rounds of calls.

Tea parties, picnics, dinner parties, all run to riot
in hill stations, where every one feels more energetic
than they have for months past ; I suppose the life
appeals to the Anglo-Indian who has just been through
a hot season : it is impossible for it to appeal to
any one fresh from home, with Scotland possibly in
his mind's eye by way of comparison.

No doubt after stewing on parade and grilling in
a dark bungalow all day it is a foretaste of Paradise
to see grass and ferns, snows in the distance, and
even to luxuriate in front of a fire of pine logs in
the chilly autumnal evenings ; but unless a hill station
is looked on from this point of view it is nothing
less than a great disappointment.

To begin with, the country itself is so very

6

82 A Sportswoman in India

" impossible." The khuds are so steep that it is no
amusement to climb up them or tumble down through
tangled undergrowth and fir-trees. Consequently,
walks and rides are limited to the few stony paths, and
grow monotonous in a week. Except for tennis,
there is nothing to do : at Dalhousie there was a
small sized polo-ground where three a-side could play.
There is practically no shooting.

Of Society I grant there is no end — many sweet
variations ; but after all Society is to be had at home,
and I believe the ordinary globe trotter would lose
little by making it a rule to avoid hill stations like
the plague, and to spend his time — say in Kashmir —
where there is riding and shooting to be had to the
heart's content, camping and marching day after day
ever to pastures new, exploring a magnificent country
where unless you wish you need meet no one. Dalhousie
has, however, some points over Murree, for instance :
the native province of Chamba, not far off, is wild
and little known, and capital shooting is, with the
Rajah's leave, to be had there. This we had in view.

At home we do not take enough advantage of
fine weather : away in the Himalayas we lived out
of doors. Riding out the first thing in the morning
two or three miles, to breakfast on some wild hill
shaded with great deodars and carpeted with fern,
we would find a quiet corner in the winding path,
moss to lie upon, steep rock rising sharply behind us,
and in front of us vistas of tree-tops and under-
growth half hidden down the precipitous hillside.

From Dalhousie into Chamba 83

Across the valley below we looked on to the
mountains topped with snow, dazzling in the early
sunlight.

Suddenly the welcome sounds of breakfast. Lai
Khan and our Portuguese cook, who had a magnificent
name with a thousand titles, and whom we always
called " The Commander of the Portuguese Army,"
emerged from behind some rocks farther down the
path, and appeared with a cloth and all the civilised
adjuncts, followed by tea and coffee, fried fish and a
steaming omelette, dal and rice, porridge, scones and
jams, fruit, etc. It is a truism to say that there are
no dining-rooms like Heaven's own halls, no keener
appetiser than the morning air.

Afterwards we fell back upon our books, papers,
and pencils, and lay looking up at the dense, vibrating
roof of leaves, and through its chinks into the blue
beyond. The place was full of meanings and sugges-
tions : an uncongenial companion would have jarred
bitterly. One with the inanities of custom, to be borne
with in the stupefying atmosphere of wall-papers,
carpets, and furniture, he would hardly have been in
a suitable environment here. Language is a poor
bull's-eye 'lantern wherewith to show off" the vast
cathedral of the world, and there come times in our
noisy, bustling little lives when it is superfluous, and
we realise that " Speech is of time, silence of eternity."
A trivial remark breaks such a silence, and our souls
tell us that the Divine Gates are closing.

The forests immediately round Dalhousie consist

84 A Sportswoman in India

chiefly of ilex, tree-rhododendrons, and deodars ; they
must once have been full of panthers and bears, but
it is difficult to get them now, though dogs were
frequently carried off by panthers, close to Dalhousie,
at dusk.

We had goats tied up at various places, and at
last one day received khubr (tidings) of one having
been killed at a little place close to Dalhousie — Jun-
dragat. This was great news ; lots were drawn as
to who should sit up and wait for the chita, and S.
was the lucky man. The same animal is called most
indiscriminately panther, leopard, or child ; but the
hunting leopard or child, as distinguished from the
panther, has a foot more like a dog, which fits it for
running down its prey at immense speed ; its claws
also are only semi-retractile.

However, all three of the large spotted cats stalk
their prey and kill it by suddenly springing on it
from some hiding-place. The largest are eight feet
long or more, and are sometimes nearly as powerfully
made as a small tiger, preying upon full-grown cattle,
horses, and even buffaloes. These large panthers
generally carry a light-coloured coat, with rose-shaped
spots, rather sparsely distributed ; the groflnd-colour
of the skin forming a centre to each spot. The
smallest panthers, or leopards, as they would be called,
are not more than five or six feet in length, their
skins are usually of a much darker hue, with the spots
smaller and clustered more closely together. Fierce,
destructive brutes, they are sly and cunning to the

From Dalhousic into Chamba 85

last degree, and have been known, though rarely, to
become man-eaters. The wounds they inflict, even
apparently harmless scratches, have proved mortal
owing to their very poisonous nature.

The sheep-dogs in the hills are often furnished
with heavy, iron-spiked collars to protect them against
leopards, which always haunt the neighbourhood of
sheepfolds, and splendid beasts they sometimes are,
capable of killing a leopard single-handed in a fair
fight. This has been known ; but as a rule they come
to an untimely end through being taken unawares and
sprung upon from behind. Common as leopards really
are, it is curious how comparatively few are shot by
Englishmen, except in certain favourable localities.
The shikari who has sent home a dozen tiger-skins
has only two or three panthers to show at most ;
while a black panther's or a snow leopard's skin is
one of the most precious trophies a hunter can
possess.

The cunning cats have an extraordinary faculty for
concealing themselves in the most scanty cover, their
beautiful spotted skins harmonising with rock and
reed and grass alike ; besides which they lie in caves
and holes or thick cover through the daytime and
prowl about at night. Most of those which are killed
are shot at night or in scant daylight over the carcases
of animals which they have destroyed ; but sitting up
for them is a work of patience, for they often will not
return the first, nor second, nor even the third night,
by which time the body of their victim is putrid, and

86 A Sportswoman in India

even the keenest subaltern is inclined to think the game
hardly worth the candle.

We, however, were all agog ; and S. was started off
about tea-time with a basket containing sandwiches and
drink and everything which would go towards a cold
supper. He rode to Jundragat, sent the pony back, and
was walked off down the khud, into the jungle, by the
native shikari who had brought the khubr. The goat
had been killed — there was no doubt about that ; and
a village charpoy, or bed, had been fastened up in a
tree close to the kill. It made a capital seat, well
concealed and screened with boughs, and quite long
enough even to lie down on ; a, rug made it most
comfortable.

S. was perched up by five o'clock, and the work of
patience began. It grew dusk slowly ; he sat till it
was pitch dark. Unfortunately, there was no moon at
all, which made it, as he said, " much less enjoyable
and much more haphazard " ; but he trusted to seeing
something at the first break of dawn. At last, about
9.30 in the evening, and when the cold supper was a
thing of the past, he heard a very slight rustle, and
shortly afterwards a loud crunching of bones. It was
quite impossible to see the body of the goat, the tree,
or anything. Nothing but pitch darkness. However,
S. knew the direction, and there remained nothing else
but to fire. With every nerve tingling, he blazed off
both barrels of his eight-bore duck-gun, loaded with
slugs. There was a rustle, then all was quiet. But
in about ten minutes' time, to his utter astonishment,

From Dalhousie into Chamba 87

the crunching began once more. It went on steadily ;
and again, praying fervently for luck, S. fired both
barrels into the darkness. Like the last time there
was a rustle, and then all was quiet.

Feeling doomed to disappointment, S. lay down and
was soon asleep. About four o'clock in the morning he
woke — surely they were not sounds of eating going on
j//7/? They were. It was black as ink all round even
then. Oh for light ! The maddening part of it was
that there were no more cartridges of the slugs left,
and to have fired a bullet in the dark would have been
absurd. Who would have thought that slugs would
have been wanted ? There was nothing for it but
to sit on tenterhooks, adjuring the dawn to break and
the panther to remain. However, the aggravating
cat was too cunning. He ate for at least an hour,
steadily, making an immense noise, crunching and
munching, going every now and then to the pool
in the nullah and drinking, then bringing a bone,
evidently, and coming and sitting right under the very
tree, purring loudly, with S., scarcely daring to breathe,
over his head. It was tantalising to a last degree,
and all that prevented S. from firing a chance bullet
with his rifle was the hope of being able to see
something if he waited.

At last the blackness appeared less dense, and
straining his eyes through it, S. thought he could
just make out a dim shadow, even then, crossing
the nullah. His rifle was up in an instant for the
moment when it should reappear among the trees ;

88 A Sportswoman in India

but that moment never came : " one loving dark-
ness rather than light " knew the signs of dawn.

All was silent. By-and-by, when the trees and
rocks began to grow faintly visible, conceive the
astonishment and joy with which S. made out one
leopard lying dead beside what was left of the goat's
body ! He was shot with the slugs in the head — a
lucky fluke indeed in the dark, and one which one
would probably not repeat once in twenty times.
Whether there were only two leopards altogether,
or three or four, or whether they were all leopards
at all, it is impossible to say. Anyhow, on a night
without a moon, such luck was indeed unexpected
and proportionately acceptable !

No wonder that the southern slopes of the Hima-
layas are fertile : go through the rains once, you
will not forget them. They begin in June, and they
last through August and September. We had a fore-
taste, the chota bar sat, before we left Dalhousie. When
it was not actually deluging with rain, we lived in
an atmosphere of perpetual cloud ; open the window —
and the room filled at once with white mist, every-
thing in it becoming damp and clammy.

Log fires kept us fairly warm : then an interval
came ; the sun broke through the clouds, and every-
thing out of doors — vegetation lush and verdant —
sprang up in rank, heavy luxuriance, as though in a
hothouse. Out we went, every leaf wet and shining,
the dripping deodar trunks stained darker than ever,
covered with lichen and sodden with moisture ; the

From Dalhousie into Chamba 89

khuds literally steamed ; the pine-needles and that
never-to-be-forgotten scent of the hills filled the damp
air. " The sound of an infinite number of rivers came
up from all round. After this deluge of rain the
springs of the mountains were broken up ; every
glen gushed water like a cistern ; every stream was
in high spate and had filled and overflowed its
channel. It was solemn to hear the voice of them
in the valleys below, now booming like thunder, now
with an angry cry/*

It is the greatest rainfall in the world which pours
down in torrents upon the southern sides of the
Himalayas. At Cherra Punji five hundred and
twenty-three inches of rain fall annually, while in
an exceptional year eight hundred and five inches were
reported. The yearly rainfall in London is about
two feet ; at Cherra Punji it is forty feet, or enough
to float the largest man-of-war ; while in one year
sixty-seven feet of water once fell from the sky, or
sufficient to drown a high three- storied house. Just
imagine more than three feet of water falling in
June alone, when in a whole year here at home only
two feet fall !

When the rains began to set in we had thunder-
storms on a large scale. We, in the innocence of the
uninitiated, began by trying to time a peal of thunder,
but when it had lasted over half an hour, gave it up.
Storms were on all sides, one long, rolling peal crash-
ing and vibrating among the distant mountains for
hours. At night the lightning was extraordinary,

90 A Sportswoman in India

forking across the sky in lurid streaks, shimmering on
and on in white sheets, and entirely illuminating my
bedroom, so that I undressed by no additional light.
Byron's storm at Chimeri could not have surpassed
this.

Far along

From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers through her misty shroud
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud !
And this is in the night : — Most glorious night !
Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,
A portion of the tempest and of thee !

The rugged Himalayas are a source of food and
health to the Indian people, for they collect and store
up water for the hot plains below. Throughout
the summer vast quantities of moisture are exhaled
from the distant tropical seas. This moisture gathers
into vapour and is carried northward by the monsoon,
or regular wind, which sets in from the south in the
month of June.

The awful heat in the plains has been growing daily
more unendurable ; driven almost to the last extremity
by depression, the Englishmen from bungalows and
barracks gaze out into the burning compounds, search-
ing the sky for one sign of coming rain, while with
famine staring them in the face the natives call upon
their gods. And when at last the first drops actually
fall, every window and door is thrown open to hear

From Dalhousic into Chamba 91

the patter of the rain, parched skins cease to irritate,
the clouds of dust are licked up, the country expands
like a sponge, the tension is snapped at last, — thank
God, the rains have come \

The monsoon has driven the masses of vapour
northwards, before it, across the length and breadth of
India, sometimes in the form of long processions of
clouds, which a native poet has likened to flights of
great white birds ; sometimes in the shape of rain-
storms, which crash through the forests and flood the
fields. The moisture which does not fall as rain over
India is at length dashed against the Himalayas — The
Abode of Snow, as the name in Sanscrit means.

One hardly realises what an immense region these
mountains form which shut out India from the rest of
Asia. Switzerland and the Alps are a little playground ;
the Himalayas are a world of their own. Glaciers
sixty miles in length, leagues upon leagues of eternal
snow, peaks higher than any upon the face of the
globe, it follows that this impenetrable region is almost
unknown to man, barring a few bold parties of traders,
who, wrapped in sheepskins, force their way across
passes eighteen thousand feet and more above sea-
level, leaving time after time only their bones, and
those of many a worn-out mule and yak, relics of
overwhelming snowstorms.

Little or no rain crosses the great mountain barrier ;
all which reaches the heart of the snows becomes snow
itself, and can never be blown across to " The
Forbidden Land," as Mr. Landor called Thibet — that

92 A Sportswoman in India

bleak table-land, sixteen thousand feet above the sea,
where rain is practically unknown, and where an icy
wind takes the skin off any exposed surface.

Upon their Indian slopes the Himalayas are covered
with forests, which spring up wherever there is any
depth of soil. Thickets of tree-ferns and bamboos,
tracts of tree-rhododendrons which blaze red and pink
in the spring, luxuriate beside the deodars in dark
and stately masses. The very branches of the trees
are grey with lichen, green with moss, and glowing
with flowering creepers and orchids.

In the autumn crops of red and yellow millet and
barley run in ribbons of brilliant colour down the
hillsides, and are grown on terraces made with much
labour upon the slopes of the khud. The Himalayas
produce little else, except timber, charcoal, and honey.
In the forests round Dalhousie we often met, along
the narrow paths, charcoal-burners and wood-cutters ;
the hardworking women generally laden with pine-
stems and conical baskets of grain. They say that
the solitary, rough life has a strange fascination in it,
and that a hillman will be a hillman to the end of
his days. The chains woven by such a country are
not brittle.

We only stayed a few weeks in Daihousie before
preparing for an expedition into Chamba for the
purpose of shooting tahr and red bear.

It was a two days' march to the borders of this
native state ; and knowing that we should have to
rough it, walking a great part of the way when we

From Dalhousic into Chamba 93

got up into the shooting-ground, we left our ayah
behind, and took with us one boy belonging to S.,
his bearer, who did duty as valet to the party.

Having sent on our modest luggage with coolies,
we left Strawberry Bank Cottage soon after breakfast,
one morning, and rode off by a winding path which
led to Kudjiar. Dalhousie once left behind, we met
no Europeans till we came back again: they none of
them wandered far afield, and seemed quite content
to spend their leave quietly in the hill station.

What we did meet with, as we rode along through
the thick ilex and tall pine-trees, were monkeys, troops
of them. Suddenly the branches cracked and vibrated,
the leaves shook and rustled violently, and a great
monkey would swing across our path from one branch
to another, followed by a whole party, old and young.
On the side of the khud they sprang through the air
into space, as it seemed, down to the tree-tops below,
with a vast bound alighting on some branch far beneath
our path, clinging tight and swinging to the four
winds with the rebound. They were handsome fellows
in point of colour — the Rhesus or Bhunda monkey, their
olive-green and yellow colour relieved by warmer tints
of a very bright chestnut almost amounting to orange.
Some of the old gentlemen had grey whiskers and
beards, others had an auburn halo round their faces.

For cool impudence and audacity these hill-monkeys
stand unrivalled : they would slip into the bungalows
at Dalhousie, and carry off anything from the breakfast-
or tea-table if the room was empty, springing from

94 A Sportswoman in India

tree to tree, from house to house — sometimes a mother,
with two young ones clinging to her, a loaf of bread
in one hand, a bunch of bananas in her mouth, which
she had just " sneaked " from a dining-room. The
care they take of their young is most touching.

Few men can shoot a monkey. I saw one fired
at once, with small shot, to drive an obstinate flock
of them off a tea plantation. Feeling it had been
hit, it rushed straight towards me, stopped, put
its paw to the wounded spot, and then held it out
to me to see, covered with blood. I was so much
grieved that it left an impression never to be effaced.

Of course monkeys are very troublesome in planta-
tions. We met an Englishman who was trying to
protect his sugar-cane patch with a great trench and
a palisade covered with nails. All to no purpose.
He walked down to it one morning to find a row
of monkeys seated on the palisade, who, directly he
came within reach, spit his own sugar-cane into his face,
then climbing down, strolled off, leisurely munching.
Such things were not to be borne : our friend chased
a flock into a tree, he felled the tree, and caught four
or five young monkeys. The parents waited near,
in great consternation, anxiously watching while their
infants were painted from head to foot with treacle
and tartar emetic. Allowed to go, they rushed off
into the fond and welcoming arms, and were instantly
carried up into the woods, and there assiduously
licked clean from top to toe by their affectionate
parents. The expected effects followed ; and the

HILL-MONKEYS.

[Page 94.

From Dalhousic into Chamba 95

pitiable appearance of the old monkeys can scarcely be
imagined. That patch was never rifled again.

In the district of Cooch-Bahar a very large tract
of land is actually considered to belong to a tribe
of apes which live in the neighbouring hills. When
the natives cut the various grain,, they always leave
about a tenth part behind, piled in heaps, for the
monkeys, who, as soon as their portion is marked out,
troop down from the hills in large bodies and carry
back their tithe, storing it under and between rocks,
to prevent vermin destroying it. On this grain they
largely live ; and the natives assert that, if defrauded
of their due portion, they would not, another year,
allow a single grain to ripen, but would destroy the
entire crop when green.

Devout Hindus, of course, worship the monkey
together with the cobra. The more savage and fierce
the monkey, the higher is its caste. Two British
officers once lost their lives in a popular tumult
through causing the death of a monkey.

I remember General M.'s charming chimpanzee,
who when asleep would often stretch himself on his
back and side, at full length, using one hand as a kind
of pillow ; never sleeping, like other monkeys, in a
squatting position. He would sit down to table like a
man, open his napkin, and use it always after drinking.
He would take up a glass with instinctive care, clasping
it with both hands, and setting it down so softly and
carefully as never to break anything. He would pour
out wine and clink glasses. He used a spoon and

96 A Sportswoman in India

fork, and in eating only took as much as he could hold
with the thumb, fore, and middle finger. He slept on
a little bed of his own, covering himself up in an orderly
manner. He would offer people his arm and walk
with them. He dearly loved General M.'s little niece,
and would run to meet her when she came into the
room, embrace and kiss her, take her hand and lead
her to a sofa, where they would play most happily.
But supposing that strange children came into the room
and began to romp, Bobby would bite their legs, shake
them, seize their jackets, and box their ears, seeming
to think he was merely joining in their fun and noise.

When General M. was writing, Bobby would often
seize a pen, dip it in the ink, and scrawl across sheet
after sheet of paper. He was fond of cleaning the
windows ; it was amusing to see him squeeze up the
cloth, breathe hard upon the pane, and then rub it
vigorously, passing quickly from one place to another.
He took tea and cocoa in the morning and evening,
and a mixed diet in between meals, such as fruit, sweet-
meats, red wine and water, and sugar. To keep him
out of mischief he lived, when the General was busy, in
a cage ; on one occasion he stole the key, which was
hanging on the wall, and hid it in his little coat-pocket.
Later in the day his master put him back into the cage
and closed the door, which locked itself. Directly
General M. was out of sight, Bobby unlocked his door
and walked out. He knew how to use a gimlet ; he
would wring out wet clothes ; he blew his nose with a
handkerchief.

From Dalhousic into Chamba 97

When at last he caught cold, and was laid low
with pneumonia, his actions were almost human. He
put his arms round General M.'s neck, kissed him
twice, then lying back on his pillow, he stretched out
his arm, took the General's hand, and died. Such
cases seem to lessen the great gulf which separates the
highest class of apes from mankind, and they bring
home to us Huxley's perfectly valid statement, that a
wider gulf separates the lowest tribe of monkeys from
the highest class of apes than that which exists between
the highest class of apes and human beings.

Bobby does not compare ill with the Australian
aborigines, who can hardly be said to possess even a
rudimentary soul, and whose brutal instincts leave upon
us a grisly impression of their bestial natures and deep
degradation. At the same time it seems impossible
that man can be descended from any of the species
of monkey now living ; and it is more probable that
both apes and man have been produced from a common
ground form of which there remains now no trace,
but which is strongly expressed in the structure of
young specimens. Childhood is less advanced, and
the young ape stands infinitely nearer to the human
child than the adult ape does to the man.

We rose gradually up a steep hillside with a
tremendous drop on the left, which was scantily
protected in places by posts and rails; a little wooden
cross at one of the worst corners marked the spot
where, a few years before, a subaltern and his pony had
been found dead at the bottom. A goat or a monkey,

7

98 A Sportswoman in India

possibly a falling stone, had made the pony shy, and
both had gone straight over the precipice together.

At the top we came to an opening in the forests,
the woodsheds, where huge quantities of timber were
stored, sawdust carpeted the turf, and great stacks
of logs and planks reached to the tree-tops. Echoes
resounded through the silent woods. We watched, as
Walt Whitman says, " the limber motion of brawny
young arms and hips in easy costumes, and the butter-
colour'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers."

We had sent servants on ahead from Dalhousie with
lunch ; and leaving the ponies with them, we walked
off our stiffness in an inspection of the forest bungalow
two or three miles off: then back to a picnic near the
woodsheds. A man in the Woods and Forests Depart-
ment must lead a lonely life in such a place, buried in
the jungle, with its beasts and their ways and a few
natives by way of variation ; but for a sportsman and
a lover of Nature, for one who has been overmuch
jostled by the world, what better fate?

We reached the little forest bungalow by tiny, wind-
ing paths, slippery with fir-pins, dark with overhanging
boughs, very suggestive of a bear or two, and a leopard.
At last a clearing showed us daylight and a low
building in the middle, out of which emerged a couple
of dogs and a bearer. Sheltered by forest on three
sides, an opening had been made upon the fourth, and
a panoramic view of sixty or seventy miles connected
the bungalow and the eternal snows.

Late that afternoon, after more riding, we found

From Dalhousie into Chamba 99

ourselves at Kudjiar, than which in all India it would
be hard to find a more lovely spot. We turned down
the steep, pine-clothed hill into a small valley enclosed
by forests and mountains, sheltered from every storm
on all sides, a little oasis rich in emerald-velvet, lawn-
like grass. A hollow in the centre contained a tiny,
rush-encircled lake, said to be without bottom. The
regal deodars were mirrored in its transparent depths,
straight as an arrow, rich yellow and green fungus
enveloping their trunks ; paludas and firs filled up
the spaces between them. The soft lawns round
the pool lay warm in sunshine and quiet in long,
solemn shadows cast by the dense jungle which
surrounded them, draping the gaunt nullahs, and
forming the abode of hordes of chita, black bear,
pine martens, foxes, and many more. The dak
bungalow where we were to put up stood a little
above the margin of the lake.

Tea in the shade ended, we lay on the turf, with
a great sense of calm and rest. The ponies, each
with his syce, grazed close by contentedly ; the slanting
sun added fresh beauty every hour ; the blue gloom of
the pines grew more dense ; the strange sough of gusts
moving among the tops of the deodars was unearthly.

Kudjiar is "a lodge in some vast wilderness for
which one sighs when in the midst of bustle at
once sordid and trivial." It satisfied. And soon
over it all flooded " the yellow gold of the gorgeous,
indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air."
It sank quickly, and left the pine-hung promontories

ioo A Sportswoman in India

rich masses of blue tone, stained on the upper heights
with rose, deepened below into purple. The far-off
snow summits were pink ; blue, red, and orange tints
coloured the still waters of the lake.

An hour later, and a moon, nearly full, a radiant
circle, wheeled up into the flushed sky. The sunset
had passed through every stage of beauty, through
every glory of colour, through riot and triumph,
through pathos and tenderness, into a long, still
rest, followed by the profound solemnity of the
moonlight and the stillness of the huge and thoughtful
night, broken only by breezes in the aromatic forests
and the night cries of its inhabitants.

We left Kudjiar next morning by 6 a.m. ; going
steadily down hill as we were, it would probably be
very hot below in the middle of the day, which an
early arrival would avoid. The path became stony
and monotonous, and we began to feel the heat
before we reached the Ravee, a greenish-coloured
torrent which borders the native state of Chamba.
Chamba seemed, as far as I could see, to consist
chiefly of mountains ; and before us lay its native
town, built in the only flat spot, and with the Rajah's
palace in the middle dwarfing the little mud houses
round it.

A smart suspension-bridge overhung the Ravee,
and had been carpeted with red cloth ; elephants and
a mounted guard and various officers were waiting
at the farther end ; in fact, the town seemed en fete
in our honour. Dismounting and walking across,

KUDJIAR.

[Page

From Dalhousie into Chamba 101

we were met half-way and welcomed by Bhuri Singh,

brother of the Rajah, some of the ministers of the

state, the Commander-in-chief, etc. Two elephants,

dazzling in gold and scarlet embroidery, were ready

for us, and we climbed into their gilded howdahs,

and were carried in state into the city, and up a

long, wide stretch of lawn, an ideal polo-ground, to

the gates of the Guest House itself. The military

band was drawn up outside, and on our arrival struck

up " God Save the Queen." It sounded homelike

in that company of Orientals. We stood up and

returned the salute, only to subside into the bottoms

of the howdahs, for the elephants unexpectedly knelt

down for us to dismount ! The Rajah himself was

waiting in the Guest House, which he had provided with

servants and with every comfort for our reception.

After his call was over, and breakfast in a great,

cool, octagonal-shaped room had come to an end,

washed and changed, we spent the rest of the day

in the finest verandah I have ever seen in my life :

it was built of great wooden beams with deep eaves,

upon the first floor, was broad as an ordinary room,

and overhung the Ravee, which tossed and tumbled

with a sleepy roar below.

Towards evening we went out again ; the General
and S. had to return the Rajah's state call, while M.
and myself called upon the Ranee. The army of the
state and our guard of forty sowars had by this time
been withdrawn ; we walked down the beautiful green
maidan with its smooth turf, accompanied only by the

102 A Sportswoman in India

Rajah's vakeel and two native policemen with yellow
trousers, who, preceding us, conducted us in state
to the palace, a large building perched up above
the green, with a courtyard and lovely fountains
surrounding it.

Here we found the band again ; there was more
playing, royal salutes, etc. The General and S. were
then conducted to a long reception-room, decorated
in a heavy, ornate style, with gaudy hangings, where
the Rajah received them. They were seated upon a
large velvet and marble throne at one end of the hall,
the ministers of the state approached one by one, and
salaaming to the General, walked away backwards.
They also offered him, as a compliment, rupees ; which
it is customary to accept, touch, and then return. It
is not intended that they should be kept.

Meanwhile, myself and M. were invading the sacred
seclusion of the Ranee. The Rajah himself took us to
her rooms, up two staircases, and in a quiet, private
end of the palace. The Ranee, who was sitting on
a sofa in the principal room, got up, and came and
shook hands with us in silence ; the Rajah then
suggested that we should sit down, and left us
alone.

Now, in those early days of our travels my
Hindustani was very limited. I could ask for certain
things to eat, I could say " very good " and " very
bad," I could count up to twelve, I knew the names
of a bear, leopard, tiger, and a few more animals, and
the word for " gun," also I could tell the time ; but

From Dalhousie into Chamba 103

this went a very short way towards sustaining a
conversation. The Ranee knew no English, and sat
speechless. I began, therefore, to admire her jewels,
which were wonderful.

She wore a nose-ring with a gigantic emerald in
it, as big as my finger-nail, and set round with
brilliants ; a buckle with a great ruby in the centre,
surrounded with smaller rubies and diamonds. Her
wrists and arms were loaded with dazzling bracelets
and bangles of emeralds, rubies, and diamonds, strung
together and set in lavish profusion. She had on every
finger several beautiful rings ; the largest of all was
on her thumb. Ropes of great pearls and necklaces
of precious stones lay round her neck and hung down
to her waist. She wore a diamond and emerald
tiara, and a magnificent diamond star hung down
upon the middle of her forehead. Immense earrings,
of a multitude of various stones, bunches of them,
hung in and round either ear. Her hair was parted
and oiled, polished and black as jet ; partly covering
her head she wore a marvellous, gold-embroidered
shawl ; from her waist two strips, almost like stoles,
hung down to her feet, wonderfully worked with a
bold and striking design ; her entire robes were
encrusted with gold lace and smaller jewels. Her
slippers alone were curiosities, turning up at the toes
into a sharp point, pale blue edged with scarlet and
shining with gold work.

Anything more Oriental, more childish, than such
a display upon a single mortal I have never seen.

104 A Sportswoman in India

She was a sight to behold ; and I repeated fervently
again and again : " Very good — very good ; very
nice — very nice." She was evidently delighted to
show off everything, and lifted her arms and put
back her shawl to display to advantage her bracelets
and earrings.

However, this could not last for ever, and I was
soon at a loss. ... A long and painful silence
followed. I tried some English with a few gesticula-
tions ; but whatever it was which she answered was
in Hindustani and was Greek to me. Another dead-
lock was inevitable. At last, when the pause was
becoming solemn beyond words, in a sudden inspira-
tion I noticed a flat parcel, which looked like work,
and which the Ranee was carrying under her arm.

I touched it, and asked what it was. It was instantly
thrust into my hands, and I divined, to my horror,
that I had forestalled a present which she was intending
to offer me. There was nothing to do but to
graciously accept it ; and I was able to cover quite
five minutes in expressing my thanks and in looking
at it. It was her own photograph, resplendent in
all her jewels ; it was folded in two handkerchiefs,
worked in Chamba, in the most flaring colours,
representing a boar-hunt, with men on horseback,
spears, and all complete ; inside was a third hand-
kerchief of pink silk.

Praises and thanks having really reached a climax,
I resolved to take my leave on the top of the " seventh
wave " with flying colours, nor face another pause.

CHAMBA.

[Page 104.

From Dalhousie into Chamba 105

The little Great Lady conducted us to the head of
the stairs, and after solemn hand-shakes we parted.

Out in the courtyard we found the others inspecting
the Rajah's menagerie, which had some interesting
animals in it, and possessed two fine, fat, white cats.

There was more band-playing. On our way back
to the Residency we walked into some most interesting
old Hindoo temples (mundas), containing grotesque
and fearful images, with curious offerings of flowers,
feathers, and bits of ribbon and rag. Bells and gongs,
which were being continually beaten, hung all round
the entrances, and they smelt strongly of incense.

On the maidan quite a tomasha was going on ; we
had some chairs brought outside our gates and looked
on. Some performing red bears were excellent — great,
muscular, heavy fellows, with huge, shaggy coats, very
different from the poor, starved wretches whom one
sees dragged round England. These Chamba bears
looked quite " bobbery," and did their tricks with
plenty of spirit, dancing energetically on their hind
feet, and salaaming to us— kissing our feet.

After them a native juggler came to the fore. He
was a marvel to talk — in fact, never ceased \ he did
the basket-trick and the mango-trick right under our
very noses, and mystified us completely, jabbering
volubly. Last of all he produced a cobra, handling
it in such a way that it was impossible for him to
be bitten, and making it sit up and move in regular
revolutions. At the same time— whatever he said —
there is no doubt that its fangs had been carefully

106 A Sportswoman in India

extracted first. I am afraid I have lost my faith in
snake-charmers, and believe them to be only arrant
humbugs.

One fine day, fresh out from home, one finds a
little cobra close to one's bungalow, and suspecting
it to be only one of a large family, sighs for a snake-
charmer, who would — so the servants vehemently assert
— eradicate the brood. Miraculously the prayer is
granted ; a man appears clutching a bagpipe, and is
soon piping lustily all over the compound. Suddenly
he stops before the wall, and pipes more alluringly
than ever : then you see him dart — two or three
lightning-like shots — at an enormous cobra in the
brickwork, which is half striking at him and half
trying to escape.

At the third shot the snake-charmer has him by the
tail, and instantly running his other hand up to his
neck, he holds the cobra close to the head, making it
impossible for him to wriggle round and bite. The
snake-charmer then proceeds to force a little piece
of stick into the snake's mouth, in order to break
down the fangs. Fangs, I must tell you, of which
there are eight, lie right back on each side of the
palate, concealed in a membrane called the " gingival
fold," but in the act of striking they become erect,
the fold is pushed away, and the keen, white, hard,
enamelled teeth are driven deep into the flesh. Below
and behind the eye is the poison reservoir, in the
cobra about the size of an almond. Each tooth is
hollow, and is practically the tube of a syringe, through

From Dalhousic into Chamba 107

which the powerful muscles of the cheek squirt the
poison, which comes out at a tiny slit in the very tip
of the fang and is forced right into the bottom of
the wound.

Taking the stick out of the snake's mouth, the
charmer next makes it catch a bit of his turban in
its teeth. The man pulls steadily at the turban till
the teeth give way, and the poison-fangs and yellow
fluid come away with the rag. Then he pronounces
the snake harmless, and puts it into his basket to
exhibit in future. You feel you will well reward him ;
but the next thing he does is to catch the cobra's
mate.

This he does carelessly, and gets bitten. A terrible
scene ensues : the snake-charmer alone is calm. You
recall a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon, when your
Hindoo punkah coolie, who was asleep in the verandah,
turned over and rolled against a cobra, which bit him
in the shoulder instantly. How you dosed the poor
fellow with brandy ; how he complained of giddiness,
but was able to speak and was quite calm ; how in
half an hour's time he was in great agony ; his legs
gradually became paralysed ; he grew speechless ; con-
vulsions followed ; how at last the doctor appeared
and injected ammonia ; how in one hour and five
minutes after being bitten your servant was cold and
stiff!

But the snake-charmer has produced a tiny black
stone, reassuring the circle of terrified servants ; he
calls it a snake stone, presses it on the bitten place,

io8 A Sportswoman in India

and the stone sticks to the wound, which ceases to
bleed. He says it is a certain cure. By-and-by he
takes the stone off and says he is perfectly well. The
wound looks quite healthy. With deep thankfulness
and gratitude you dismiss the man, and are lavish in
the matter of a tip.

My dear madam ! your snake-charmer arranged the
tiny cobra for you this morning, and had just turned
out the two large ones before you came into the
compound ; their fangs were extracted properly months
before.

Our man would have gone on with his performances
all night. We emptied our pockets, and finally went
into the Guest House to dress. Native bagpipes came
and performed through dinner, and we could hardly
hear ourselves speak.

Later on in the evening we had a long and most
interesting interview with Bhuri Singh in reference to
our shoot. He had practically made the whole bundo-
bust^ and we were to be sent right up into the
mountains, to the Rajah's own preserves, provided
with tents, servants, shikaris •, provisions, and everything
we could want — all at the Rajah's own expense.

It would certainly be hard to find warmer hospitality
than we met with in India ; and Bhuri Singh spared
no pains to make our expedition an unqualified success.
I remember so well his warning us that there would
be a great deal of rough climbing, and that farther up
and into the hills it would be quite impossible to ride.
He evidently thought it rather strange that women

From Dalhousie into Chamba 109

should care to embark on such an expedition at all.
I don't think we altogether accepted all his statements ;
and perhaps had we done so, one calamitous accident
would never have happened. But who could foretell ?

Deciding, therefore, that in order to save time it
was imperative we should ride as far as possible, we
elected to take two ponies ; the General returned to
Dalhousie, leaving me his charger " Sphai," a chestnut
waler, to ride myself. As my own pony <c Vesta "
had a rooted dislike to steep descents and khuds>
whereas Sphai possessed plenty of sangfroid, I was
glad of the exchange.

S., M., and myself made all our arrangements over-
night and packed our kits. It was most necessary
to travel light, in order to save carriage and time.
We reduced our little all to a minimum : a roll of
bedding and a bag each, which one coolie could carry.
This done, we retired to roost, an early start before
us on the morrow, leaving the doors of our rooms
open on to the verandah, to the fresh air, and to the
sleepy roar of the Ravee.

CHAPTER IV

CHAMBA INTO KASHMIR

Unexplored Mountains — Our First Red Bear — A
Narrow Escape— Tahr— Difficult Climbing— Our
Bag— A Sad Accident.

CHAPTER IV

CHAMBA INTO KASHMIR

Ere the moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks are ribbed

with light,

When the downward-dipping tails are dank and drear,
Comes a breathing hard behind thee, snuffle-snuffle through the

night —

It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!

On thy knees and draw the bow ; bid the shrilling arrow go ;
In the empty, mocking thicket plunge the spear ;
But thy hands are loosed and weak, and the blood has left thy

cheek-
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear !

RUDYARD KIPLING.

OFF at last ! Delightfully independent we felt
as we rode out of the Residency about
7.30 a.m., our faces set towards the <c back of
beyond." There is no feeling like it ! To be in
your oldest of old clothes, to feel you are going out
of the reach of letters, telegrams, and the faces of
the civilised world ; free to go and to do exactly
as the spirit of the moment moves you ; only your-
self to answer to : time is of no object ; you may
wait or hurry, eat where you like, sleep where you
like. It is the only life — the only life worth living
for we mortals who have been born with the necessity
of change rooted in our beings.

1x3 8

ii4 A Sportswoman in India

Gradually we left the town of Chamba far behind,
and wound up into the mountains ; the path became
rougher and more stony, climb after climb loomed
in front of us. We were obliged to get off and drive
the ponies before us ; it was much too steep to
tempt them out of a walk. We toiled upwards ;
the sun grew insufferably hot, and glowed off the
open, rugged hillsides, and the stony path tired our
feet considerably. We stopped at the top of one
cliff, up the side of which we had zigzagged back-
wards and forwards, and finding a hut and a spring,
the breathless ponies and ourselves all had a good
drink. A shepherd up there was playing with a
marmot skin made into a bag, which he offered for
sale at four annas.

The country was bleak and rocky, mountains all
round ; the path we followed took us continually up
and down, but ever higher by degrees. The stones
became worse than before ; and the two polo-ponies
grew more and more disgusted and lazy, and must
have wondered where on earth we were taking them.
This sort of work might so easily strain them that
finally M. and I alternately rode Sphai, whenever
the path allowed, and S. walked, the two little Arabs
climbing painfully along in front of him. We all
went, of course, in single file. Bhuri Singh had sent
a Jemadar with us to show us the way — for once
really a " delightful " native, tall and spare, equal to
clambering anywhere. He was mounted on a chestnut
pony, and rode a little ahead of us.

IN THE HIMALAYAS.

[Page 114.

Chamba into Kashmir i r 5

Our kit was all on the backs of coolies, and we
soon passed the long, perspiring string of them,
resting for a moment by the edge of the path, groaning
over their loads, as they always do. There were
twenty of them, carrying tents, provisions, clothes,
etc. Near them walked a little party, consisting of
the cook — a huge, bearded man — his mate, our own
bearer Mamdln, and later on the Jemadar, three
syces, and two shikaris. We were amused at the
big umbrellas each man walked underneath to shield
himself from the sun.

We reached our first dak bungalow at Musroound
in the very middle of the day, baked with heat. We
had done what is reckoned as one march, thirteen miles,
at the rate of two and a half miles an hour, and not
always that. There was a verandah in front of the
empty bungalow, with an expansive view of the oppo-
site side of the valley. We pulled three charpoys (beds)
out on to it, and lay down on them. The natives
in the village, roused by the Jemadar, brought us up
a great brass bowl of milk, which was most acceptable.

About an hour and a half later the servants and
coolies turned up with our supplies, and having lit
a fire, tea was brought us by MamdTn — eggs, cold
chicken, and sardines. Then we broke it to our
appalled retinue that we intended doing another march
before nightfall. S. sent back the two ponies and
their syces, keeping Sphai with a man's saddle for
either of us to ride, as he seemed able to get along
without much difficulty.

n 6 A Sportswoman in India

Sitting in the verandah, we watched our sorrowful
followers and Sphai's grumbling syce wind down into
the valley and begin struggling up the opposite side,
knowing we should pass them only too soon. That
march was rather a trial ; it was still blazing hot, and
the path got worse as we went along — thirteen miles
of it, turning interminable corners, hoping that every
one would be the last and would disclose the longed-
for dak bungalow. Darkness came on, and still we
stumbled along on our weary legs, with an occasional
lift on our steed.

At last, about 7.30, the Jemadar announced we
were there, and the Kulel bungalow was before us.
Sphai's syce took him off to some outbuildings ; and
later on S. found the boy weeping on account of the
long march. A diet of rice and butter does not
produce fine physique, and the ordinary servant is
lazy, flabby, muscleless. It thoroughly disgusts one
to see men behaving like children.

M. and I slept inside the bungalow, which was hot
even with all doors open. As usual it was provided
with a great zinc bath, and as soon as the servants
had arrived and lit a fire, we had a good supply of
hot water. These tin tubs, two charpoys to sleep on,
and two chairs, with a table, complete the furniture
provided by Government for dak bungalows. If rough,
it is, with one's own bedding, quite comfortable, and
we were too tired to feel anything else as we lay
down. S. had his camp-bed put together on the
grass, and slept under the stars.

Chamba into Kashmir 117

The next march on the following day was even
hotter ; we were shut in by precipitous gorges and
immense heights on either side. The sun glowed
down ; and it was hard work, following on the day
before. We dipped our heads over the ears in every
stream we crossed. Even sitting upon Sphai, the
perspiration trickled down all over one, so it may be
imagined that walking along the mountain-sides was
severe, climbing up the steep side of one valley, only
to struggle down another and then toil up again, and
so on, ad lib.

The coolies were left miles behind, and the servants,
big umbrellas and all, were not much better, a great
deal of hookah being smoked by every stream. The
last ascent to Tisah was almost worst of all ; but as
we laboured up the mountain we had at least the
satisfaction of seeing our goal in the distance. We
were more than five hours on this march; and after
the servants were in I shudder to think how many
quarts and quarts of tea we drank ! We went to
bed at seven that night ; there happened to be what
the servants called a stick-waller in the bungalow
too (a Woods and Forests officer), and there was not
much room left for us.

After having retired so early, we rose without
difficulty at 4 a.m. in the dark, dressed by a candle-
end, had hazriy and got through our march before
the heat of the day. We saw the sun come up over
the peaks, and turn all the snows ablaze with pink.
It was a great deal cooler ; we were still climbing

n8 A Sportswoman in India

upwards, and for the first time seemed to be getting
really near the snow mountains. The scenery was
becoming grander. We met very few natives, chiefly
shepherds with herds of goats and bullocks.

All our butter now was made of buffalo's milk
in an untempting fashion ; we had little unleavened
cakes instead of bread, yeast not being procurable ;
but on the whole Bhuri Singh's cook did us royally,
and mutton, chickens, eggs, and sardines never failed.
The poor man was always on the march, too !

Alwas, our last dak bungalow, was at last reached.
Beyond this it was quite impossible for any horse to
go. Sphai was therefore left behind with his syce,
to be picked up again on our return journey. He
had indeed come wonderfully well, climbing over
almost incredible places and creeping round hair-
curling corners which were not pleasant to cross upon
one's own feet. On some ground, where it was
particularly bad, we led him ; but he was to be trusted
almost anywhere, in spite of being really too big for
such work.

Alwas was a perfect spot. The isolation of those
magnificent wilds appealed to one strongly, and the
lonely little bungalow, right down in a sheltered glen
beside a torrent which tumbled through a precipitous
nullah between mountains no longer bare and open but
clothed with forest and crowned with snow, was a
striking example.

A rough wooden bridge was thrown over the stream
upon gigantic boulders, which cut the torrent into

Chamba into Kashmir 119

foaming waterfalls ; on one of these plateaux of rock
a hut had been built, and the water guided by means
of a narrow cut along the floor of the hut, inside which
it turned a rude wheel and ground a little corn into
flour. The hut was also the dwelling-place of a
primitive family. They were much interested in us,
and produced a bowl of milk from their goats. Trees
and undergrowth half hid the bungalow, and were a
joy, after the bare nullahs, to look upon.

Every day our march had been a finer one than the
last ; the higher we climbed, the more beautiful was
the scenery and the cooler it became. The stream
thundered in caves and hollows worn in the rock ; the
sun dropped early behind the overhanging mountains ;
it was a superbly peaceful evening.

Two shikaris belonging to the Rajah met us at
Alwas, and after tea had a long consultation with
S. Asked where Jamouni lay, and where our camp
was really to be, the Jemadar invariably pointed up at
the snows far above our heads, and remarked, " Ooper "
(" above "). There was the prospect of a good deal ot
oopcr for the following morning.

S. was up and away next day by four o'clock with
his rifle and the shikaris, hoping by making a detour
to come across a red bear, or snow bear as some
people call them. M. and I followed at six o'clock,
going up the most direct way. It was a climb, and
we took five hours to get up six miles. There was
no path of any sort or kind, and we simply clambered
up the face of the forest ; and since the coolies managed

120 A Sportswoman in India

it too, with all our kit on their backs, we began to
respect them. The reason it was hard work was on
account of the rarefied atmosphere ; we were climbing
between fourteen and fifteen thousand feet above sea
level, and until you have grown used to this altitude
breathing is laborious. The Jemadar and Mamdm
gave us both a hand now and then. After a spurt
of this sort — panting — we were allowed a rest, till
Mamdln came up and said sternly, " Che I ! — chel !
Mees Sahib " (" get up !— get up ! "). We meekly
rose to renewed efforts. Whenever we asked how
much farther, the answer was invariably, " Ooper."

At one time we had to ford a loud-tongued, rollick-
ing stream of ice-cold water, in which immense pine-
logs had gone aground, not to be floated off till the
next spate. When one saw the white planks also
far below in the distance, strewing the bed of a
rather dried-up stream, they reminded us of a train of
spilt lucifer matches.

There was a blaze of sunshine everywhere, a universal
glitter which I never saw till I came to India ; this,
together with the elasticity of the air, banished every
feeling of weariness and gave one spirit for anything.
The mountains rose like castellated and embattled walls
round us, skirted and crowned with dark pines, which
occasionally parted to show some snow-slashed peak
beyond, rising into the intense, unclouded blue sky.
The forests were full of stumps and roots left by
woodcutters, and we came across smooth funnels worn
in the steep mountain-side, where trunks and logs

Chamba into Kashmir 121

were evidently shot down into the streams below, to
be floated off as felled timber.

Breathlessly we clambered on. About midday we
got up to short grass and open space, with a good
many tree-rhododendrons growing near. Having been
allowed by the Jemadar and bearer to sit down, we
were surprised at a camp-bed being suddenly brought
us. Again our want of the vernacular in the absence
of S. was trying ; however, it was soon explained, in
limited English, that this actually was Jamouni. So
here we were — probably the first European women
who had ever penetrated as far into Chamba. The
tents were put up in an incredibly short time, and
we had tiffin. It was a magnificent spot — such a
view !

We strolled about by ourselves the rest of the
afternoon, and found ourselves upon snow in a short
time. The nullahs were full of it, frozen, directly the
sun sank, hard as iron and slippery as glass ; in middle
day the top more or less slushy.

We had not gone very far before MamdTn came
rushing, breathing heavily, after us : " Dis countree
veree jungley, Mees Sahib. Ehalu \ " We promised
him we would not be eaten up by bears, and at last
persuaded him to leave us.

Once in some thick undergrowth we heard a heavy
animal moving, but it was not clear enough to allow us
to see. No doubt plenty of bears were about, and
we began to wish we had brought a rifle with us.
These red bears, (lal bhalu) are only to be found

122 A Sportswoman in India

near the snows. In the sixties the country was literally
swarming with them, and people were afraid to go
from one village to another after dark ; they have
been shot more of late years, and those palmy days
are no more.

The red bear always hibernates, retiring to some
cave at the beginning of winter, and reappearing in
April or May, when the snows begin to melt. Absurd
stories are told of their sucking their paws and sub-
sisting during these months on their own fat ; but
as their retreats are buried under many feet of snow,
and there is no clue to their whereabouts, I can't verify
the fact ! They are generally — like a dormouse — thin
and weak when they first show themselves ; but their
hair is longest at this season and the hide itself freest
from grease, and therefore more easily cured.

We got back to our little camp, and were just
beginning to feel tea-inclined, when the shikaris and
S. appeared. He had shot a bear, some distance off",
and had left him there to fetch the next day. They
had had a long tramp.

Leaving Alwas, they followed a rugged and ill-
defined path up a steep incline for about four miles,
and at last saw a couple of red bear on the grassy
slopes ahead of them. They were a long distance off
and some way apart — one being far up the hill, and the
other below them, nearer a river. They determined
to try for the one on higher ground first, and accord-
ingly went after him. Just as they were getting
within long shot, he moved off for some reason best

Chamba into Kashmir 123

known to himself, as he could neither have seen nor
smelt them. S., who was very keen, foolishly fired
at him as he was moving fast ; the bullet hit, but
apparently too high, for the bhalu went steadily on.

Meanwhile, the other bear was still feeding con-
tentedly down by the stream, the noise of which had
probably prevented him from hearing the shot. It
was not easy to get within range of him ; but after
some circumvention, on looking over a rock, S. saw
him digging up roots about thirty yards below him.
A bullet behind his shoulder tumbled him over, and
he rolled down the bank, roaring and howling con-
siderably, on to the very water's edge, where he seized
hold of a branch in his teeth and hung on for a few
moments.

S. rushed down the hill and was about to fire again,
when the bear dropped into the water and was carried
a little distance down stream, where he contrived
to slip from behind rock to rock, and finally escape
altogether in a dense patch of cover which skirted the
actual forests.

Much disappointed, S. and the shikaris climbed the
hill and began searching for traces of the first bear.
They walked a good distance with no result, and
finally sat down about midday, waiting in hopes of
something coming out to feed in the afternoon. It
was cold work ; but about three o'clock a very light-
coloured bear emerged from the forest and began
feeding. A deep ravine separated him from S., and
he took a deliberate aim ; but though the bear rolled

124 A Sportswoman in India

over, he soon scrambled up again and began to ascend
the ravine.

S. and the shikaris climbed down and across it, and
followed as quickly as they could, occasionally seeing
the bear, but never getting within shot. Time went
on, and very little daylight remained ; the hillside
was open, and they found themselves with another
ravine full of snow lying between them and the bear,
who was under a sort of cliff. The only chance lay
in crawling across, which they eventually did, and in
the end S. rolled the bear over, stone dead, Clamber-
ing back over the frozen snow and ice was hard work,
but the shikaris were a tower of strength.

That night the Jemadar came to us full of a tale he
had heard of some bears which had attacked a whole
family of charcoal-burners in the jungle farther on
and rather below our camp. They seem to have been
coming home at night and to have met some old bears
and their cubs ; the old bears turned upon the men,
who took to their heels, fortunately little the worse,
except for a claw-mark or two. They were anxious
we should visit a cave, which the bears were said to
live in, that night, and smoke them out by moon-
light ; but our prudent shikaris strongly advised
waiting for daylight, and after all we had had a
tiring day, and were not sorry to get to bed early.

Next morning we were called before it was any-
thing approaching light, and proceeded to walk to
this bears' den. The stars were almost dazzling, and
it was freezing hard ; the snow shone ashen white

Chamba into Kashmir 125

in the moonlight ; the ground crackled crisp under
our feet.

The chota shikari carried M.'s rifle, a 500-
Express, and the shikari walked behind S. Not a
word was spoken. At last we came to a steep cliff
in the middle of the jungle ; deodars grew on its
almost perpendicular face wherever there was the least
crevice and lodgment of soil for the roots to find
foothold. Here and there were patches of thick
bushes, and again smooth walls of rock. It was in
one of these last that an immense fissure had opened,
forming an entrance apparently to dark recesses
beyond, which wound into the heart of the mountain-
side. Bushes hung down from above and partially
concealed the opening, while in front of it for a few
yards the ground was comparatively level.

By signs the shikari intimated that this was actually
the spot ; he motioned M., myself, and the chota
shikari to hide ourselves behind a couple of huge
deodar trunks, while he himself and S. crouched in
a rhododendron bush. It was an eerie spot, and as
the wind moaned and the branches rustled, the
imagination conjured up all sorts of sights and sounds
in the impenetrable shadows.

Day broke before very long, and henceforward our
eyes were glued upon the entrance to the cave ; it
was growing quite light when the shikari gripped my
arm : a large and tawny body emerged from the ramifi-
cations of the rock and came out of the shadow on
to the patch of grass outside the cave. He was

126 A Sportswoman in India

followed by another and another and another, five
in all.

Number four was the old female, and she carried
two baby cubs in the long fur of her shoulders, which
she put down and allowed to play about round her,
like a couple of little Skye terriers. Some of the party
began feeding on the young sprouts of grass, while
the others turned over the stones for the beetles and
other insects to devour. The old bear sat on a stone.

The whole group were so uncouth and grotesque
in their movements that we, watching them, were
positively holding our sides and aching with suppressed
laughter. Needless to say, we were well to leeward
of them ; bears have extraordinarily acute powers of
scent, but they are very blind animals, and care need
only be taken to avoid giving them the wind.

In spite of the nudges and impatient whispers on
the parts of the two shikaris, either gun was loath
to fire the first shot and to disturb the happy family.
However, we could not wait all day. S. made a
signal, and putting up his gun, aimed at the old
bear on the stone ; while M. almost at the same
moment put a bullet into a female that was grazing.

The old bear toppled off his rock, fell on to one
of the others, and they both rolled downhill together.
Seeing that M.'s female was lying apparently dead,
we ran down the face of the descent as fast as we
were able. The old bear, growling furiously, was
stumbling about at the bottom. S., who was down
first, rolled him over with his death-warrant.

Chamba into Kashmir 127

We saw the back of the other bundling away as
fast as he could move. The old bear had an unusually
fine skin, nearly white, the hair being about eight
inches long ; he measured two inches short of seven
feet from snout to tail ; his arms and claws were
admirably adapted for digging, enormously muscular,
the claws being very strong, slightly curved, and three
or four inches long. We left him below to be fetched
to our camp, and toiled up towards the cave once
more to look at M.'s "bag."

We had just reached the top when a large form
loomed over the edge, and the resurrected bear charged
right down upon us ! ... There was absolutely no
time to act ! — no time to think ! Though severely
wounded, she sprang at M., who was nearest her, was
on her hind feet in a second, making for M.'s face
and striking at it with her strong arms. My blood
froze ! — it was a horrible sight, and so totally un-
expected ! Thank Heaven ! the chota shikari was a
plucky man and rose to the occasion. He dashed
forward, and thrust M.'s rifle into her hands and
into the bear's face. Which of them pulled the trigger
it would be hard to say ; the great body fell forward
almost upon them — dead as a stone. No one had
the heart to shoot the mother and cubs, or I do not
think it would have been difficult to have followed
them up.

After these thrilling moments, feeling the need of
breakfast, we called up our tiffin coolie, f who had been
valiantly watching our movements from the branches

128 A Sportswoman in India

of a tree, and emerging into open country, we sat on
some rocks in the sun and despatched sandwiches,
biscuits, and cold tea with a witt.

We then set off to try and see more red bear ;
but whether any turned up or not, it was worth
anything merely to be alive in such a country : the
dazzling blue sky above us ; the white, glittering
snow-peaks around ; here and there a frozen nullah
or a snow-slope to cross; the crisp grass under our
feet ; the grey crags ; the cold, sparkling streams at
which we drank ; the warm sun we basked in through
midday ; the intoxicating air : what a life it was to
lead — alone upon the roof-tops of the world !

It was not till quite late, and after much clambering,
that we came across two bears lying asleep upon a
flat rock. We stalked them for a mile with great
patience ; but on getting within range they moved
and began feeding down a slope. After much stalking
we managed to get within eighty yards of them, and
M. rudely aroused the larger of the two with a
bullet which must have shaved the hair on his shoulder.
Unfortunately, it did nothing more ; and S. missed
the other — a running shot. This was bad luck or bad
shooting ! We followed the bigger and the darker of
the two, who had made over a nullah, and struggled
after him, backwards and forwards, for miles — seeing
him and making fresh efforts ; losing sight of him and
coming across him again, always out of shot. Finally,
we were obliged to give it up and to leave our bhalu
to his native fastnesses, ourselves tired out. The

TAHR.

{Page 128.

Chamba into Kashmir 129

long march back to camp in the dark was hard, and
we got in almost beyond a meal ; but a blazing fire
outside did wonders, and a long night was a cure for
all ills.

The next day there was the skinning of three bears
to superintend. Scraping the thick fat off the hide
was a work of time, but at last they were all
pegged out in the sun. About midday we struck our
camp and made off in a westerly direction to Mougli,
which was within reach of the best tahr ground. We
sent our kit on early and followed ourselves later.

As we were crossing a nullah, slowly, for it was
ice-bound and very slippery, the inevitable fate which
follows sportsmen befell us. There was a roar above
our heads, and a shaggy red bear came bundling down
the gorge straight to us. With loud growls he pulled
up, not thirty yards from where we stood, and remained
there — broadside on — a perfect picture and a perfect
mark ! S. rushed for his gun, which he had just
handed to a shikari while he steadied M. across a
bad place. The man had, of course, walked on ! By
the time a couple of bullets were rammed into the rifle,
the bear's back and his rough, tawny coat waving and
tumbling was the only thing to be seen rapidly dis-
appearing down the nullah. S. fired twice at the
retreating object ; and then made a solemn vow that
he would never let his rifle out of his hands again.

That night found us at Mougli, and two or three
mornings later we had some great expeditions after
tahr.

9

130 A Sportswoman in India

What a good feeling it is to be fit and well : to
have your nerves steady and your head cool ; to awake
every morning revelling in the almost fizzing air !
Such was life up on those mountains in our little
khaki tents, perched on the somewhat steep, rocky
slope (a bit of level ground was never easy to find).
At all distances around only peak after peak of snow
was to be seen ; gorgeous and solemn mountains to
the tops of which no man ever has been, or ever will
go ; which are therefore steeped in the senses with the
glamour of the " un-get-at-able " — that " un-get-at-
able " which, as long as man lives, always has and
always will constitute the Heart's Desire.

The Himalayas are full of memories — memories
which bring those which have been born there up from
the plains back to the hills to die : back to the land
of storms and sunsets ; to the dear, damp smells of wet
moss and scented fir-pins and rotting undergrowth.
It cannot be told why ; either it is born in a man or
it is not. He knows.

I could never stand the plains —

Think of blazing June and May,
Think of those September rains

Yearly till the Judgment Day !
I should never rest in peace,

I should sweat and lie awake;
Rail we, then, on my decease

To the hills — for old sake's sake.

Women do not shoot with their husbands and
brothers nearly as much as they might do, provided

THE LEDGES, AFFORDING SCANT FOOTHOLD,
SANK ABRUPTLY INTO ROUGH, PERPEN-
DICULAR PRECIPICES FAR BELOW.

[Page 130.

Chamba into Kashmir 131

they are the right sort of women. Of course, there
are women and women ; but in the present day, when
so many of them care for a free life, I wonder that
the majority of those should still live a conventional
one.

Soon after we were fairly camped up at Mougli,
one " parky " morning at 5 a.m., fortified with some
coffee and biscuits, we set out, S. and M. with their
rifles, and two shikaris, to explore for tahr. As we
tramped over the rough ground and climbed gradually
up the craggy hillsides, the sun rose. It is idle to
describe a sunrise over snow mountains ; paradoxical
though it sounds, it is " a light that never was on
land or sea."

It was a hard task labouring up those steep ascents
in the rarefied atmosphere. One must have a good
head, too, to get round some of the corners, where
the rock above bulged out in a most awkward way,
and where the ledges, affording scant foothold, sank
abruptly into rough, perpendicular precipices far below.
M. handed the shikari her rifle, and we held on with
our eyelids.

Almost as bad were the steep slopes of rocky
shale which we had to cross. As we carefully moved
over them, the loose lumps of rock rolled under
our feet at every step and leapt over the edge, the
long interval before the sounding crash at the bottom
suggesting an unpleasant " drop."

We wore thick, indiarubber-soled shoes ; they are
noiseless, and in climbing through forests do not

132 A Sportswoman in India

slip on the pine-needles. We tried grass-shoes at
first ; but a pair were done for in a day, and they
made the toes sore where the grass-rope passes be-
tween. We had been climbing for some time, and
at last sat down to scan the ridges which were now
apparent. Nothing to be seen yet. A little later,
and one of the shikaris sighted two male tahr through
a glass. They had finished feeding, and were evidently
slowly making their way up to the heights for a
midday sleep among the rocks. They looked a long
way off; and with what interest did I not examine
them through my glasses !

The sight* of the big grey goats more than com-
pensated for every yard of the distance we had toiled
up from Chamba. Their light ash-colour deepened
to brown-black on the head ; their long, shaggy hair
on the necks and shoulders caught the sun as they
walked ; their great, grey beards almost reached their
knees ; and I could just see their short, curling horns.
We sat down and discussed mutton sandwiches and
cold tea, and then set forth on our stalk, the tahr
having gone just out of sight.

We had an awkward ravine to cross to start with,
and I must confess to not appreciating it. S. went
first, M. second, a shikari third, myself fourth, and
the other man last. In many places footholes had to
be cut to enable us to get along at all. One slope
I did not like — it broke off below where we crossed
into an abrupt precipice, hundreds of feet sheer
descent. S. was cutting footholes, and having gone

Chamba into Kashmir 133

over with M., I prepared to follow, with the shikari
just in front.

Meanwhile, the other shikari, in a superior way,
thought to get across himself higher up. Suddenly,
he lost his balance and slipped, and came sliding —
gliding — down the slope straight on to me, in spite
of all his efforts to stop himself with his finger-nails
and stick. Over I was knocked, and falling on the
top of him, partly, stopped his headlong career in
a small degree ; but we should both have slipped
on and slid into eternity, had not the first shikari
saved us. Using all his strength, and with extra-
ordinary grip of the insecure foothold, he caught us
and stopped us till we had regained our balance.
But it was an uncomfortable moment.

We crept up at last, with infinite caution, to the
ridge the tahr had crossed as they disappeared from
view. There they were again — -joy ! — three hundred
yards off and still moving on, and looking for a
select corner. They were fine, big fellows through
the glasses, and once more we watched them vanish ;
when to our disgust a female appeared just above
where the males had crossed, and was evidently on
the look-out. She had chosen her stand so well
that if we even put our heads above the rocks she
must see us. She was now about eight hundred
yards away. It was very provoking, but the only
thing to be done was to go back and put this ridge
between ourselves and the astute sentinel.

This we did, and climbing the dividing ridge got

134 A Sportswoman in India

round the flank of the tahr ; then dropping below,
out of sight of the female, worked towards the place
where the males should be. The task was a for-
midable one indeed. We began the toilsome ascent
with the sun literally blazing on our backs ; on we
persevered, up and up, across some bad ground,
always thinking that surely at last this was the top of
all things, only to find a still higher platform of cliff.

At last the summit was reached. We were hot
before ; now we were to be frozen, for the northern
slope was one vast sheet of snow ; it was soft, and
we sank in often up to our knees — slow, toilsome
work ! My fingers ached with cold ; my feet were
numb. We began climbing down again ; and now
the greatest possible precaution was needed, for it
was impossible to know exactly where the tahr
were : that they were quite close was certain ; but
whether to the right, or to the left, or below, we
had no idea.

We trod as silently as experienced burglars ; once,
crossing a slaty ridge, the rock under my feet gave
way, and down the slates went, with a terrible rattle
which must have been heard a mile off ; but I
remembered with comfort that hill game are not
disturbed by noises of this sort. Now that we were
getting close it was nervous work for those who
were going to shoot — moments painfully strained
and propitious for making flagrant misses.

We halted ; the others crept on to try and locate
the tahr. I watched them pass out of sight. A

AN OLD GREY GOAT GOING HIS BEST PACE.

[Pagan

Chamba into Kashmir 135

quarter of an hour's nervous tension followed, and
then the shikari reappeared and beckoned to me.
I stole down as noiselessly as possible, and then
followed to where the others crouched behind a rock.

Silently we drew ourselves up and looked over —
a sight one could never forget ; culminating points
stamp themselves indelibly on the memory. Below
us lay our raison d'etre. Quite at home, on a small
patch of sloping grass about a hundred yards off,
across a small ravine — there were the tahr. How
can I describe our feelings when we suddenly saw
them leap up and rush off like the wind ! . . . The
disappointment and shock were so great that neither
of us fired ; besides, they were out of sight in a
twinkling.

We were off, too. It was impossible that they
could have been disturbed by us ; therefore within
the bounds of probability that, not having seen us,
they might come round and give us a shot. S. took
the left ; M. the right ; and what we had faintly hoped
for came to pass. S. had two easy shots, and killed
with his second barrel. Meanwhile, M. ran and
climbed, helped here and there by the shikari in
front ; suddenly he dropped, and cried, " Shoot ! "
Over his shoulder M. saw an old grey goat going
his best pace, and up with her rifle and had a snap-
shot at him. The result was a brilliant fluke ; he
rolled over like a rabbit. We were too jubilant for
words, and the shikari was beside himself; M. had
now a reputation to which to live up !

136 A Sportswoman in India

Thoroughly pleased with such luck, we partook of
some tiffin ; after which we climbed to the place
where we had first seen the tahr lying down, and
from claw-marks and little tufts of hair lying about
gathered that probably a leopard had jumped down
among them. Also S. thought he saw something ;
but it all happened in such a flash.

The sky by this time was darkening over, and it
became very evident we were in for a bad storm.
Down came snow-clouds, mist and sleet, like a solid
white wall. One of the shikaris knew of a filthy little
lean-to used in the summer by goat-herds, to which
he led the way. We huddled into a corner of it
which leaked less than the rest of the roof, glad to
get into shelter at all. It snowed and sleeted hard
for a bit, and then, to our relief, cleared off as
quickly as it came on ; the great masses of cloud
driving away before the wind on our left, and the
sun beginning to stream over everything on the right.

We left the two tahrs' heads to be fetched
later, and ourselves walked off and upwards to new
ground. From point to point we swept the country
with our glasses, but the desolate crags stretched away
from us untenanted by life of any sort — no living
creature moved upon the slopes. The storm had
driven everything, like ourselves, into shelter. So be
it. We descended.

If the mountain had been bad to get up, it was
a thousand times worse to get down. We were just
resting, after a bad bit, when we caught sight of some

Chamba into Kashmir 137

tahr actually in the direction of our camp ; had the
storm not driven us down, we must have missed them.
They were on a spur, grazing close to a large
white stone, which made a capital mark to guide the
stalker.

In a bee-line they were a mile off; but to reach
them it was necessary to go down to the bottom of
the valley, over the stream and up again, across some
very impracticable-looking precipices. With such an
incentive we positively rushed down to the bottom,
and luckily finding a goat-track up the other side,
we got into the right position just about an hour
after we first saw the tahr, finding the white stone
a great assistance.

S. and M. separated. One tahr was lying under
the stone, another was more to the right. M. was
to get as near as possible to the former, while he
stalked the latter. By dint of excessive caution, she
and myself and one shikari, advancing about an inch
at a time, crept to within about fifteen yards. Leaning
forward, we could see the shaggy old goat through
a fissure in the rock.

It was the easiest shot in the world, except that
the earth we stood on crumbled considerably, and
M. was not very steady. She waited some moments
to give S. time — moments to hear the heart thump !
thump ! — then raising the rifle, took a long aim and
pulled the trigger. Great goodness ! — missed him !
The second barrel followed as he bounded off, and
apparently missed him again, as he went out of sight

A Sportswoman in India

over the cliff. M. looked more like suicide than
anything, and the shikari's pity was so many coals
of fire.

S. had wounded the other tahr ; he was hard hit ;
we followed him up, found him in a corner, and
despatched him. Three head in one day was not
bad ; we regained our spirits, only to send them up
mountains high when, on crossing M.'s line of fire,
we came on blood marks. Then, after all, she had
hit him, with her second barrel ! Farther on was
more blood ; then traces of his having rolled to
the edge of a steep drop on the cliff side. Kneeling
down and stretching over, there we saw him, dead at
the bottom. He must have been hit fair ; but his own
impetus carried him on, and he disappeared from our
view before he actually rolled over. One horn was
broken off short, but it was found later on ; the lower
jaw was missing, too. The sun was setting, and
we had a bad time getting down over the fast freezing
slopes before we eventually reached the somewhat
mutilated body of the fallen tahr.

It is hard to imagine anything more grateful and
comforting than reaching one's own little tent after
a hard day's work ; such glorious exercise is worth
a caravan-load of doctor's stuff, and does give one
an appetite ! We had left our tea-bottle in the goat-
shed, and had had nothing since to drink except
frozen snow — not much of a substitute. In the now
sunless ravine it was freezing sharp ; we had a big
fire of birch logs, which were rather damp, and inclined

Chamba into Kashmir 139

to pour volumes of smoke into our tents when a
capricious gust set that way. But still it looked
very cheery, and threw ruddy gleams into the shades
and hollows of the ghostly mountain side on which
we were camped.

We had our evening meal inside my tent. In
order to keep warm these freezing evenings, the
most scratch kit imaginable was raised. Recollect
we had marched as light as possible. We slept in
all our clothes ; and as we sat down to our meals at
night wore woollen gloves, caps, and flannel coats which
went over everything.

Thus arrayed, we sat at a little rough camp-table,
upon such a slope that we each of us tilted over in
our chairs once, before we had learnt the " lay " of
things. No cloth on the table, but a large tin tea-
pot, three great teacups, a tin plate, knife and fork
each, a cup with butter in it, a cup of sugar, a saucer
of salt and another of mustard, and a whisky-bottle.
A couple of bedroom candles supplied our light ;
these Mamdln stuck upright on to the table in a
pond of their own grease to keep them firm.

But our dinner itself was recherche to a degree.
As everybody has heard, native cooks can work
miracles, producing passable dinners under quite hope-
less conditions : so to-night we had mulligatawny
soup ; a capon and a hump followed — a really good
Bengal hump is hard to beat ; next the inevitable
chicken cutlets; next curried mutton and rice, with
(poppadums) thin wafers, only seen in the East, and

140 A Sportswoman in India

excellent. A blancmange followed a savoury of
sardines, and we wound up with biscuits and cheese.

We sat round the camp afterwards, well wrapped
up, talking of our adventures to-day and to-morrow's
plans. One of the best parts of travelling consists
in all that it gives one afterwards to look back
upon.

So with the friends whom death hath spared,

When life's career is done,
We'll talk of the dangers we have shared

And the trophies we have won.

Talking about carelessness and slackness over shoot-
ing, almost the same thing which had happened
to S. happened to M. while after tahr. She was
toiling along, lazily allowing the shikari to carry
her rifle, when suddenly an ibex appeared on the sky-
line only about eighty yards from her. He stood
perfectly motionless and had a good look. Tableau !
As he nipped round and was off like a flash, M. dashed
at her rifle and had two shots at him. The moral
is obvious ; but, cui bono ? As long as human nature
lasts the same thing will happen.

I have often wondered how one would define a real
sportswoman, and I think any definition should include
an appreciation of the free camp life — such as ours.
It might run thus : " a fair shot, considering others,
and never doing an unsportsmanlike action, preferring
quality to quantity in a bag, a keen observer of all
animals, and a real lover of nature."

As we left Chamba we picked up Sphai on the third

WAS POWERLESS TO HOLD HIM UP J RIGHT OVER HE SLOWLY WENT.

[Page 142.

Chamba into Kashmir 141

or fourth day, and rode him wherever the ground
would allow, dismounting and leading him when it
became too bad. We went up and down some
dangerous and difficult places, and time was apt to
breed contempt. One no longer realised how danger-
ous it was. Many of the paths were barely three feet
wide in places, with a cliff above on one side, and a
precipice below on the other ; they were the roughest
tracks, and one came to vast rocks and had to follow
a sort of staircase up them, with no proper footing for
a horse at all.

It was very nervous work at first, but, as I said,
we grew used to it. Descending a steep ravine, I
remember, as I rode over a little bridge at the bottom,
loosening my short skirt, which had caught up under
the saddle. S. was in front, out of sight, with M.
Slowly Sphai clambered up the path on the other side
until we were nearly at the top. The last little bit
was much steeper ; on the left a wall of rock rose
perpendicularly above our heads, on the right the
narrow path broke off into a sheer precipice down
to the gorge far below.

Making an effort up the last steep bit, Sphai dug
his willing toes into the rock and broke into a jog ;
at the same time he turned a little across the path,
inwards, which, of course, threw his quarters outwards.
With one of his hind-feet he loosened a rock at the
edge, and his foot went over with it.

It is almost impossible to describe such scenes, even
though this one will remain in my memory as long

142 A Sportswoman in India

as I live. Instantly — there was no time to think — I
felt him turn outwards still more, and both his hind-
legs were over. In the selfsame moment I threw
myself off the saddle on to the path. I do not know
— I never shall know — how I did it. I kept hold
of the reins, and for a second of time, kneeling
on the path, clung to them, Sphai's head on a level
with me, his two poor great fore-legs clattering
hopelessly on the path, while with his strong hind-
quarters he fought for a minute for life, trying
to dig his toes into some crevice in the precipice.
It was only for a second. I was powerless to hold
him up. There was not even time to call to
S. Right over, backwards, he slowly went, with
a long heave. I saw the expression in his poor,
imploring eyes. . . .

Picture what it was like to stand there, powerless
to help in any way ! I rather wished I had gone
over too. A hideously long silence — such a dead
silence — and then two sickening crashes, as he hit
rock after rock. A pause, . . . and a long resounding
roar from all the rocks and pebbles at the bottom
of the gorge.

The shock of what had happened stunned me
beyond expression. The whole scene has been a
nightmare many a time since. Sphai lay, literally
smashed to pieces, down below ; and but for the
facts that I had just happened to pull out my skirt,
and, being on a man's saddle, slipped off at once,
the rocky gorge would have held us side by side.

Chamba into Kashmir 143

S. went down and afterwards examined with
glasses the face of the precipice. The unfortunate
horse must have twice struck rocky projections before
the fearful and final smash, a short distance from
the stream. The perpendicular height was not less
than three hundred yards.

I am little tempted to linger over such a scene.

All is over ! This is death !
And I stand to see thee die,
Brave old horse !

Rest, old friend ! Thy day, though rife
With its toil, hath ended soon ;
We have had our share of strife,
Tumblers in the mask of life,
In the pantomime of noon
Clown and pantaloon.

Thou hast fallen to thy rest—
And thy fall is best !

CHAPTER V

KASHMIR

From Dalhousie to Kashmir— Our Start from
Gulmerg— Baggage, Caravan, and Retainers-
Magnificent Scenery— The Zoji La Pass— Moun-
taineering in Kashmir— Ascent of the Silver
Throne— Glaciers— A Near Shave.

IQ

CHAPTER V

KASHMIR

The East is as warm as the light of first hopes,

And Bay, with his banner of radiance unfurled,

Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes,

Sublime, from that Valley of Bliss to the world.

MOORE.

Surging sumptuous skies,
For ever a new surprise,
Clouds eternally new, —
Is every flake that flies,
Widening wandering skies,
For a sign— Farewell, Adieu?

ROSSETTI.

A FEW weeks later, leaving Dalhousie, S. and my-
±\. self went on to Murree, a spot in which I trust
my lines may not fall again ; it is a typical hill station
— calls, dances, dinner-parties, day after day, and there
is no getting away from one's fellow-man.

In our mind's eye we had long had Kashmir as a
goal, having been steadily working things towards that
end ; and the very thought of leaving Murree in the
rains, where we spent most of the day indoors in a thick
fog watching the streaming downfall, was almost too
good to be true. However, it came at last ; we had
made all arrangements with Mr. Dhanjiboy's carrying

J47

148 A Sportswoman in India

agency to take us into Kashmir by tonga^ the ponies
had been sent on ahead, and we had packed all our own
effects. Sunday, July 24th, saw us start (the better the
day, the better the deed) at 9.30 a.m., in torrents of
rain, for our Eldorado, "The Happy Valley."

No traveller in India should miss seeing Kashmir.
True, it is said to be spoilt ; it is said not to be what
it once was ; but in spite of this it is still one of the
most fascinating and most beautiful kingdoms in the
world. It is large enough not to be in the least degree
over-peopled by the many Europeans who now go in
on leave every summer. There are hundreds of places
up in the valleys, out of the beaten track, where one
might camp for months unmolested by a single fellow-
countryman. It is a country which, like everything
which is worth caring for at all, grows upon one ; the
longer a man is there, the more part of himself it
becomes, the harder it is to leave, and the dearer grow
those memories which time does not succeed in
effacing.

At every stage, that is about six miles, we changed
ponies, and our tonga rattled into Kohala for tiffin in
the dak bungalow. The route into Kashmir follows
the valley of the Jhelum, that classical Hydaspes which
formed the eastern limits of the conquests of Alexander
the Great. He is said to have embarked on it to
descend to the Indus.

We first came in sight of the Jhelum at Kohala ; it
was very hot down there, after Murree, and quite fine ;
a punkah was acceptable at tiffin. We were soon

Kashmir H9

off again, and over the bridge which lands one fairly
in the Rajah of Kashmir's dominions.

Only a few weeks before, Mr. Talbot, son of the
Resident in Kashmir, Sir Adalbert Talbot, was, at
Kohala, bitten by a dog presumably mad. Mr. Talbot
had come out from Magdalen College, Oxford, to
spend part of the Long Vacation with his people ; but
the only thing to be done after this unfortunate
catastrophe was for him to return to Europe at once,
travelling direct to Paris, and there to undergo the
Pasteur treatment

Rabies is rife in India among the swarms of
unclaimed and wild mongrels who act as scavengers
in every native village and town, sleeping through
the day in dark corners, to emerge at dusk and prowl
around all night. The difficulty, after being bitten,
is often to get hold of the dog and ascertain whether
he is mad or not.

We drove on, stopping at Dulai for tea, and sleep-
ing the first night at Garhi, a hot and steamy place.

The next day we breakfasted at eight, got off at
once in our tonga^ lunched at Uri, and arrived at
Baramoula, the entrance of Kashmir, that evening.
The drive had been an uneventful one, a hundred
and twenty-five miles from Murree ; at first, between
brown mountains, the scenery was tame, but as we
got higher up it became grander. Now we had
heard the last of the tonga horn, blown by our
driver, as we cantered full tilt round the sharp corners,
for many a long day.

15° A Sportswoman in India

Kashmir is an elevated and enclosed valley in the
Himalaya Mountains, north of the Punjab. It is
surrounded by lofty hills with one opening on the
west, at Baramoula, by which flows out from the
valley the River Jhelum. In an old Sanscrit history, a
copy of which was presented to Akbar when he invaded
Kashmir, it is stated that the valley was formerly a
lake, and that it was drained by one of the sons of
Brahma cutting the gap in the hills at Baramoula.

In the existing physical condition of the country
we may see some ground for this story — waterworn
pebbles are to be found in the clay and sand, and
the ancient name from which Kashmir is derived,
" Kasyapa-pur," is connected with the draining of the
lake. The low, level floor of the vale is about
eighty- four miles long and twenty-four miles broad ;
its mean height is six thousand feet above sea-level.

Much has been said and written about the beauty
of the Vale of Kashmir. Spring encircles a fresh,
green, smiling valley with a noble belt of glistening,
snow-capped mountains. Autumn fills the eye with
the wonderful riches of the gloriously coloured foliage.
At all times, from end to end of the vale, flows on
the quiet, glassy river, reflecting the groves and
avenues upon its banks, the craggy hills and the
far-off mountains. There is no place, no season,
which has not its beauty : the rapturous praises of
the Mohammedans, the romances of Moore, may be
extravagant ; but, after all, few will dare to deny
that fiction is not surpassed by fact.

Kashmir 151

The climate is one of Kashmir's attractions, for
it has not the periodical <c rains" of India. The
south-west monsoon is shut off by the Pir Panjal
range, and rain falls irregularly, chiefly in the spring.
Snow hardly falls at all in the valley, and it is never
insufferably hot.

The dak bungalow at Baramoula was close to the
river ; it reminded us of Henley — a great, placid
expanse of water. From Kohala to Baramoula the
Jhelum is an unnavigable torrent — green waves
flecked with foam tumble among boulders and sweep
in rapids between high gorges ; but above Baramoula
its character changes, and on the eighty miles of
river in the flat valley there is much boat traffic.

We were beset by natives at every turn, owners of
house-boats, anxious to take us up to Srinagar. The
river bank was lined with these kishties — some smart,
big boats, and some of an inferior native pattern.
The owners, the kishty -wallers, were the greatest curse
imaginable. No doubt it is delightful enough to
live in a house-boat on the Jhelum, paddled silently
along, loafing all over the Vale of Kashmir, into its
beautiful lakes 'and up the smaller rivers ; but we
turned away at present from dolce far niente towards
the higher valleys and the mountains. Reason was
a thing which the kishty -wallers could not see, and
they pestered and followed us to such an extent that
we were at last driven to pelting them with stones
from the river bank, which had an excellent effect.

The next morning S. and I rode off" on the ponies,

152 A Sportswoman in India

early, to Gulmerg, high up above Baramoula ; sending
our kit by coolies, with whom walked Sala Bux, our
own servant, and two syces. I had had great doubts
before leaving Murree as to whether an ayah would
be necessary or not ; I was thankful afterwards not to
be hampered with one. An ayah cannot walk ; she
is bound to ride. Supposing you wish to go over
country which is impracticable for mules, coolies will
carry your kit ; but it is annoying to be obliged to
have four extra coolies to carry a servant. Moreover,
as one is travelling with little or no luggage to speak
of, an ayah is not wanted to pack and unpack. In a
tent, what is there for her to superintend ? — dust ? My
own experience of one on a march was that she was
always behind or in difficulties on the road ; that
she arrived at night tired, grumbling, and useless ;
and was, in fact, out of temper from the time she left
our own compound until the evening we arrived
back again.

Sala Bux did all I wanted, as far as getting hot
water and calling me went ; he made my bed, brushed
my clothes, cleaned my boots, and packed my bedding.
His head was filled with something other than brains,
certainly ; but he was a well-intentioned fool.

We left the central vale behind, and began climbing
the slopes of the mountains which immediately shut
it in on the south-west. Below, the green, flat expanse
stretching into the distance looked like a ready-made
hunting-country, and after brown Murree the fresh
verdure of the crops, the grass, little trees and hedges,

Kashmir 153

refreshing beyond words. It looked, as it is,
the land of fruit — a land in whose rich soil you have
only to plant your walking-stick for it to grow.

The sleepy, blue Jhelum wound through it like
a ribbon laid upon the flat. All round the valley
were mountains, grey and wooded up to a certain line,
and above that line white, dazzling snow. In the
afternoon we reached Gulmerg by a path through the
forests — a steady ascent from Baramoula ; we had come
up into the clouds, too, and it was raw and chilly.
Our path eventually opened out into an open space or
merg, and here it is that the English in Kashmir
yearly congregate, when the valleys below are supposed
to be hot and full of mosquitos, living in wooden huts,
or in tents, round the edge of the merg under the pines.

It is an odd little settlement. Soft, short turf — in
colour positively a poisonous green, it was so vivid —
carpeted this little basin in the forest, two or three
paths intersected it, an ugly church in the middle a
good deal spoilt it, on one side was the polo-ground
and club, on the other the golf-links, and all round,
under the trees at the edge, were the little huts, where
everybody was living a picnic life, with their ponies
tethered outside. The Resident's house was at one
end, the wooden hotel at the other, to which we went,
for tents did not look inviting in the mist and rain.

We had bad weather at Gulmerg. We were not
golfers ; it was too wet to get much polo ; and conse-
quently the place palled more than it ought to have
done, considering how hospitable everybody was. We

154 A Sportswoman in India

had a dance and concert at the hotel, we dined out and
attended tea-parties, and we went in for a gymkana
and a horse show ; after which festivities we repaired
to the native bazaar, and, seated on a packing-case
with paper and pencil, spent an afternoon buying stores,
cooking-pots, and crockery (enamelled tin), bargaining
over everything with an exorbitant native, till we were
supplied with the necessaries of camp life. Our outfit
ready, and having had a last dinner with Captain and
Mrs. Fred Davies in their hut, we left one morning
with many adieus to all our kind friends at the hotel.

We rode straight down to the vale, into warmth
and sunshine, leaving damp and verdant Gulmerg,
buried in its mists and forest, two thousand feet above
us. Across the vale we made our way to Soper, on
the Jhelum once more, and arrived at the dak
bungalow about 6.30 p.m. We had a long, weary
wait (with nothing to eat) for our kit, the coolies
being slow ; and when at last they arrived, Sala
Bux was still behind with the keys of the padlocks
on the leather kilters in which all our rations were
stored. His reception was sultry. Finally, we had
a scratch meal in the dark, outside the bungalow in
which we slept — cocoa, tinned soup, tinned sausages,
and stewed peaches. The mosquitos down by the
river were not so bad as might have been expected,
but it was hot. This was, however, our last night
under a roof for many weeks.

We engaged a cook and a shikari at Soper. The
cook was a big, bearded, capable-looking fellow ; the

Kashmir 155

shikari Lalla proved to be a plausible old villain.
Kashmiris are not show-specimens among mankind :
lazy, cunning, liars ; if they constitute, as people say,
remnants of part of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel, who
would be an Israelite ? They are certainly Jewish-
looking — dark, with hooked noses.

We were inundated with competitors for the two
posts ; but the cook we chose, and Lalla, had both
of them better chits than the rest. Natives have
the most extraordinary faith in chits — that is, written
testimonials as to character from old masters. Dismiss
a man, cut his pay, punish him as you like, but —
give him a chit. Though he cannot, probably, read
a word of what you have written, he looks upon
it as a talisman. A native handed us a chit from a
former master, a Captain-sahib, with immense pride ;
it ran thus : " This man surpasses all other Kashmiris
for rascality and cunning."

By law of the State, no European can buy land
and build himself a house in Kashmir, consequently
travellers all use tents or house-boats, or rent a log
hut in a place like Gulmerg. The admission of
British visitors used to be limited, and permission
was granted to military officers by the Government of
India. In like manner more than eight hundred years
ago, as we learn from Arabic histories, the passes used
to be watched, and few outsiders admitted.

Connected with this long-cherished exclusiveness is
the non-existence of roads of any sort. Picture a
country in which there are nothing but paths and

156 A Sportswoman in India

foot-bridges, and in which, consequently, the whole
of the transport is done either by coolies or mules.
A mule carries a hundred and sixty pounds, and can
manage two tents ; whereas it takes two coolies to
carry one. Coolies are four annas a march, ponies are
twelve ; consequently mules or ponies are cheaper and
also much quicker ; we hired them from the villages
whenever we could. Marches average from ten to
twelve miles a day.

Next day we were off, with our caravan, consisting
of three eighty-pound tents, one of which was for
the servants ; leather kilters containing cooking-pots
and pans, tinned meats, soups, flour, raisins, biscuits,
cocoa, tea, jams, etc. ; a table, chairs, beds, tin bath,
gun-cases, cartridge-boxes, our own two trunks,
bedding, and etceteras, among which must not be
forgotten a kerosene oil-tin. Who has ever been
seen upon a march without one ? The track of the
Britisher across the East is marked by soda-water bottles
and kerosene oil-tins. Servants will pack your most
cherished possessions in these tins : they become
bread-pans, cake-boxes, all your hot water is boiled
in them, milk is kept in them, your trunks are
patched, your carts are mended, your rotting sheds
are roofed, all with pieces of this ubiquitous friend.

Our object was to go up the Sind Valley to the Zoji
La Pass ; and two days' march round the Wular Lake
found us at Manasbal, near the mouth of the valley.
We left the "road to Gilgit " on our left, which
history has made so familiar ; the name alone conjures

Kashmir 1 57

up visions of the Chinese frontiers, of the Hindu
Kush, the Pamirs and Turkestan.

It was hot riding along down below, and we found
the apples and pears we picked in dozens on the
edge of the path a great blessing. We each selected
the drink we would like to summon — I forget what —
but it was something very long and sparkling, with
ice tinkling in the glass. All day long we skirted
the Wular Lake, an unruffled green stretch, marsh
and water, perhaps ten miles long and six broad,
covered with water-lily and lotus leaves, rather like
the Norfolk Broads. The sunset over the leaves, the
reflexions, and the crimsons and saffrons on the oily
water, were something to remember.

The Sind Valley quite fulfilled all our expectations :
the trees were luxuriant ; giant planes — the chenar —
with trunks the size of small houses, poplars, willows,
cypresses, walnuts, apples, pears, quinces, apricots,
cherries, mulberries ; there were acres of saffron, with
its beautiful purple light flowers, grown in fields;
higher up we were among deodars, hazels, birches,
virburnum, junipers, roses. And beneath all these
trees the path wound, close to the beautiful, rocky
Sind River, which rose far away up among the snow.

At Kangan, our next camp, S.'s syce, a Madras
boy named " Mary," suddenly appeared with a fine
lamb in his arms, which he suggested we should buy
and have for dinner in two hours' time ! It was
purchased for half a crown and slain, and was acceptable
after incessant ducks and chickens — these are to be

i58 A Sportswoman in India

bought from any village at twopence or fourpence
each. Our cook made us chupattis of Indian corn,
which were not bad hot ; Mary proved to be quite
a laundress : altogether our staff might have been
worse ; Lalla was chief counsellor and guide, and
was very anxious to be off shooting.

As we neared the top of the valley the scenery
grew more grand, and our last day's ride was one
series of glories and surprises, wild, fantastic views
opening up continually. A steady ascent among rocks
and pines led us to a narrow gorge — ridges of grey
crags towering above each other in similar construction
on either side, deodars growing from every crevice in
the walls, range above range dark with pines and
topped with threatening peaks of everlasting snow.

Our camp that night was at Sonamerg, once a
great summer resort for English people, but now
deserted in favour of Gulmerg. No longer a
narrow gorge, the Sind Valley suddenly opens out
into broad, rolling meadows enclosed by mountains
of grand outline. Sonamerg means Golden Meadow ;
and in the spring yellow crocuses thickly stud the
pasture. Rivulets pour down from the surrounding
snows and keep the broad merg green and fresh
through the summer heat, and knee-deep in grass
and flowers.

We had for days been gradually ascending, and
were now 8,650 feet above sea-level, which is, I
suppose, the pleasantest midsummer elevation in
Kashmir, The air was soft, the vegetation luxuriant ;

Kashmir 159

it was a land of pastures and woods below, of snow,
rocks, and ice above. The hillsides were covered with
blue, yellow, and purple blossoms, tossing their heads
in the breeze ; higher still, above the tree-zone,
glittering glaciers were wedged between the barren
crags, and the long, gaunt ribs of the mountains
sustained fields of snow.

Our tents were soon up, at the edge of this mountain-
locked merg ; our unpacking quickly done. Having
probably found our set of teacups in my long boots,
a cake of soap hidden in a coat-sleeve, and my collars
wrapped round a cream cheese which we got in
Gulmerg (such were the vagaries of Sala Bux), we
had guns often to look to, perhaps something to sketch,
always diaries to be written up, while we lounged in
the shade — those lazy afternoons. . . . Home letters
had to be written — "Home," which 'plays such a
large part out in India, and is the final goal of every
Englishman's hopes and plans. Even we idle globe-
trotters could not forget, and could realise a little
that it might be possible to write —

Oh the toil that knows no breaking !

Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless aching !

Oh the black dividing sea and alien plain!

As soon as the servants had it ready, we dined on
our camp-table under the trees, and afterwards strolled
about, watching the sun sink behind the desolate ridges
outlined by a long, thin saw-edge of black fir-tree.
For a brief half-hour the cold snows were crimsoned,

160 A Sportswoman in India

and then night was upon us, for there is no twilight.
Back to the camp and the bright fire, by which the
servants appeared to sit murmuring and talking all
night.

To avoid the trouble of light, and with a view
to making early starts, we went to bed about eight
in the evening. Those who only know what it is
to sleep under a roof between four walls, think of the
night as a thing apart from themselves — comfortless,
dark, and to be avoided ; they have yet to learn
what it is to be of it and in it — to sleep, as the
French so happily put it, "a la belle etoile"

Lie in your tent with the flap tied back ; look
straight out into the country, restful, comforting
darkness all round, the black, shadowy tree-trunks
standing up like dark ghosts, caught sometimes by
the fitful flicker of the camp-fire ; a tree-beetle drones
occasionally ; an apple falls with a thud on your
tent ; overhead the beloved stars of your far-off"
home, the Plough and the Pole-star, gleam brightly.
One is never " alone " : all around is " a voiceless
yearning that is surely prayer ; life's strange, dumb
cry to Nature in her pain." The silence is full of
sound . . . the immediate world, breathing close
at hand, is only part of that great world which sleeps,
toils, and sorrows from the east unto the west.

Once and once only in the night Nature awakes,
as all those who have lived with her know. About
two o'clock in the morning the cocks crow, the birds
chirp, the ponies and cows stray round the camp,

Kashmir 161

rub against the tent-ropes and munch a little, the
sheep and goats on the hills change their ground.
Nature rouses up, turns over, and falls asleep again.
And you yourself sleep, until you wake to find a
wan light breaking over everything, and a shivering
breeze stirring the grey grass — dawn ! Dawn, and
a cold freshness everywhere and dew on everything !

We decided to spend a day in going over the
Zoji La Pass, which is some miles beyond Sonamerg ;
and on the following morning, making an early start,
rode up the valley, past the picturesque little native
village of Sonamerg, following the banks of the
Sind River, cantering over the soft turf. We crossed
the river continually by the well-known Kashmir
bridges, which are only a few feet wide, with no
hand-rails, and generally full of holes. Rope-bridges
are largely used ; but when anything is wanted strong
enough for a mule, the Kashmiris have built from
time immemorial on the cantilever system — that is
to say, in their rough and narrow bridges of a singk
span the supporting timbers project one over another
from the bank, their shore ends being weighted down
with masonry. They are of great antiquity, and
are said to have suggested the Forth Bridge.

A certain amount of mystery and reverence sur-
rounds the name alone — Zoji La ; though only 1 1,500
feet high, it has a bad reputation for icy gales and
sudden snowstorms. Last winter this treacherous
pass was responsible for three hundred mules and
drivers, who were overtaken and perished in the

ii

1 62 A Sportswoman in India

deadly cold. The Zoji La is a sort of gate in the vast
range of the Western Himalayas, which includes Nanga
Parbat (26,620 feet high) ; it is a gigantic step — over
two thousand feet — by which one rises from Kashmir
up on to the table-lands of Thibet. It divides the
dominions of the Rajah of Kashmir into two nearly
equal portions, in which the climate is different, and
the race and religion of the inhabitants are different.
On the one side sunny Kashmir, the Aryan race and
the Mohammedan religion ; on the other the bleak
wastes of Central Asia, the Mongolian race and the
Buddhist religion.

The valley of Sonamerg ends in Baltal, at the
foot of the pass. Baltal, a collection of three or four
rough stone huts clustered together, forms a refuge
for dak-waller s^ and for the Ladakis and Dards
bringing droves of baggage-mules across the pass.
English sportsmen, too, cross over every year into
Ladak directly the pass is practicable, and many a
one has known what it is to be snowed up at Baltal.
Game, in these bad days, is only to be found within
reduced areas in Kashmir, and so one is driven
farther afield in search of the much coveted markhor,
ovis ammon, ovis poll, yak, etc.

It was sleeting a little, and we went into the largest
hut, where there was a fire on the mud floor of damp
birch logs, and a suffocating smoke in which we
coughed and wept. Some stunted Dras coolies of
the ugly Mongolian type were squatting round it.
Outwardly they compare to disadvantage with the

[Page 162.

Kashmir 163

handsome Kashmiris ; but there is no question which
are the better men of the two.

The storm clearing off, we were only too glad to
get out of the c< man-stifled " hut and, leaving our
own ponies behind, to begin our climb up the pass.
There is a summer and a winter route across the
Zoji La : the first zigzags up the valley, a long and
tedious climb, at first through birch-trees and flowers,
giving place to deodars and rhododendrons, and
ending in bare crags ; the second route lies straight
up the gully on vast snow glaciers, and is dangerous
in the summer ; the swollen torrent below wears away
great tunnels and cavities, above which the gradually
decreasing snow roof becomes very treacherous, and
if ventured upon, a risk is run of falling through to
inevitable death.

We clambered slowly up the zigzag path, and
met a great " caravan " of yaks carrying salt and
wood. Exports from Ladak are small ; but the
transit trade is a large one. Everything from the
Punjab, Afghanistan, and Kashmir — cotton, skins, silk,
and tea — has to pass through Leh, the capital of
Ladak, on its way to Eastern Turkestan and Chinese
Thibet ; while raw silk, silver, gold, charas, and horses
come back in return from Turkestan to India — a
trade which, registered at Leh, averages £134,000.

The whole of it is carried by coolies, ydksy or ponies,
over the Zoji La and other more difficult passes, often
eighteen thousand feet high ; and it is further hampered
by the exclusive policy of China and Russia.

164 A Sportswoman in India

The yak is an extraordinarily sure-footed beast, and
can be ridden, or will carry transport, over ground
which even a mule could not cross. He is about four-
teen hands, or rather less as a rule, has black, shaggy
hair, which hangs in heavy masses nearly to the ground,
so that one can hardly see daylight under an old bull
in his winter coat. His bushy tail is much prized in
India for switching away flies. He has a thick,
muscular neck, high withers like a hump, a broad,
massive forehead, and finely curved horns, short,
thick legs, and large hoofs. He has been immortalised
thus : —

As a playmate for children remember the yak ;

You will find him exactly the thing.
He can carry and fetch ; you can ride on his back,

Or lead him about by a string.

The Tartar who lives on the plains of Thibet,

A desolate region of snow,
Has for centuries made him his nursery-pet —

And surely the Tartar should know.

So ask your papa where a yak may be got,

And if he be awfully rich
He will buy you the creature — or else he will not, —

I cannot be positive which !

It grew distinctly colder as S. and I steadily struggled
upwards, and when at last we were well in the funnel
of the pass the wind whistled. The barren region
beyond the Zoji La is fascinating to an extraordinary
degree. Central Asia, with its desert wastes, its
freezing blasts and burning sun, has indeed a fitting
entrance in that sunburnt and sorrowful pass. The

Kashmir 165

desolate outside pines we had climbed through, stripped
of their bark and blanched by the weather, were a
fit foreground to a scene that can hardly be surpassed
in solemn grandeur.

Wastes of stone and sand surrounded us ; far in
the veiled distance must lie " The Forbidden Land,"
and the impenetrable Lhassa which has beckoned many
a traveller, like the Lorelei of old. Around us were
heights unnoticed, unnumbered, unnamed ; neither
were we drawn to explore these prehistoric lumps ;
no earth or grass covered the naked skeletons ; the
vastness and nakedness of the piles of debris, the
shattered rocks, the ice-worn stones, formed one
of earth's saddest pictures.

No wonder that mountains have been, and are still,
worshipped as gods which are '• too great to appease,
too high to appal, too far to call." For, after all,
Nature is " the true quickener of emotion, the
awakener of thought, the background and abode
of man, the analyser of the human mind, and the
vehicle or subject of human intercourse."

We walked on through the pass until we came
to the point where the streams ran away from us
toward Thibet. We were beyond the roof-ridge. The
descent on the other side was scarcely noticeable, for
Ladak and Balti lie very high. The climate there
is intensely dry, the sun's rays very hot, and the
afternoon winds are piercingly cold, while, except in
summer, it freezes every night. It is a barren, dreary
country.

1 66 A Sportswoman in India

The Ladakis, Baltis, and Dards are hardy, simple,
clumsy people, dirty (washing, it is said, once a year,
but not regularly), and fond of social gatherings ; they
play polo. They are beardless, with rather flat noses.
In Ladak polyandry is general.

The widespread prestige of China is curiously
illustrated by the fact that tribute, though disguised
as a present, is paid to her for Ladak by the Rajah
of Kashmir. It must be understood that the actual
Valley of Kashmir is only a small part of the whole
State, which includes Gilgit, Baltistan, Kishtwar, Jamu,
and Ladak.

We waded through two ice-water streams, cold
beyond all description, which tumbled down from
the snows above ; and we clambered over a great
glacier many tens of yards thick. A stream ran
underneath the glacier, and we stood in the cave
formed by it as it went in, a cool cavern, a real " ice-
house," with its shining, shingly floor, its blue-green
sides and roof, ribbed and polished and wet — the
coldest place in the world. In the shades at the end
of the cavern, by tortuous windings where the torrent
had eaten its way, it boiled along, thundering to itself
far away in the heart of the glacier, after it had dis-
appeared in the sinuosities of the walls, —

Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.

The wind outside was deliciously dry and bracing, even
if it was cold. As Euripides said of the Athenians,

Kashmir 167

so were we "ever delicately treading through most
pellucid air." All idea of distance was most curiously
lost by the atmospheric effect, and mountains eighty
miles away might actually be taken for hillocks forty
yards off, and vice versd. It was extraordinary.

Time was getting on, and with regret we had to
turn our backs upon Ladak, and set our faces once
more towards the valley of Kashmir. Thousands of
feet beneath us lay the green slopes of Sonamerg,
dotted with cattle : there were deodar forests, black
and gloomy, bounding waterfalls and tranquil pools ;
it was indeed " a glorious upper world," in which
one found more than one had ever dared hope for.

We were tempted to camp longer at Sonamerg and
explore some of the mountains ; but had not sufficient
time. Colonel and Mrs. M. and two friends of theirs
were doing exactly what we should have done, near
Haramuk ; and a short account of one of their days,
told me by Mrs. M., of an expedition up a peak,
illustrates another of the resources of Kashmir.

The little mountaineering party consisted of two
men and two women. Three of them had climbed
more or less in the Alps, and one of their servants,
a Ghoorka, " Chowry " by name, was almost equal to
a guide.

" We had two tents carried up to the south-east of
Haramuk, to the west of the Sind Valley, and pitched
about nine thousand feet high on a barren but sheltered
little plateau before a steep cliff. A couple of natives
cooked for us, and another two kept going backwards

1 68 A Sportswoman in India

and forwards to the nearest village for supplies. Of
course we had our own commissariat too — tinned meats,
tea, coffee, chocolate, raisins, soup tablets, condensed
jelly, and so on. We all wore "puttoo" — thick
woollen Kashmir homespun : a long coat and knickers
are the only suitable and safe garments for women
to climb in, whether shooting ibex or anything else
on the mountains. It was bitterly cold, and water
froze inside our tents.

"We had a great fright one night after a fall of
snow. About midnight we were suddenly awakened:
there came from far aloft a tremendous explosion,
followed by a second or two of dead quiet. A
great mass of rock must have split off and was
thundering down towards us. Some one started up,
wringing his hands and crying c O my God ! we
are lost ! ' We heard it coming, mass after mass
pouring over the precipices, bounding and re-
bounding from cliff to cliff, great rocks in advance
smiting one another. It seemed close ; it was probably
some distance off.

" Early one morning, before the sun had risen, we
started on an expedition, fortified with some hot coffee
under the cold stars, which we drank standing round
the camp-table. Its legs were frozen to the grass
outside my tent, our usual rendezvous ; feeling at that
early hour rather cross and very much ' martyrs/ we
set forth.

" To-day was reserved for the ascent of the £ Silver
Throne ' — a peak christened by G., a poetical lady ; it

Kashmir 169

was one of the highest within our reach, and singularly
beautiful amongst the ocean of mountains around us.
The peaks were soft and sharp as the sun rose ; even
the shadowed parts were radiant with reflected light
more brilliant than man could depict. The sunlight,
as it moved along, revealed the delicate ripple of lines
which marked the waves of drifted snow and the
concealed crevasse.

" It was another of those cloudless mornings ; in our
sunless, misty climate in England it is difficult to realise
the influence which persistent fine, cold weather
exercises on the spirits. We followed a goat-track
for some time, but quitted it when it bore away to the
east, and struck off across the moraine.

" It was a desolate waste of gigantic rocks, hard work
to climb across ; but * toil and pleasure* says Livy, ' in
their nature opposite, are yet linked together in a kind of
necessary connection* and we clambered on across this
fringe of the edge of the great glacier above us. Now
and again between the debris of rock we looked down
into a fissure filled with the blue-green light of ice,
and showing what lay below the moraine.

" Leaving it altogether, we struck out across the
glacier itself. Here we decided that it was advisable
that we should be roped. As events showed, it was by
no means a needless precaution ; we none of us knew
the country, and though our two <c menkind," H. and
F., were experienced mountaineers, it is not like having
a local guide. H. went first, G. second, Chowry
third, myself fourth, and F. fifth. Thus the female

17° A Sportswoman in India

element was divided by our clever little Ghoorka
servant, and we had a good man last. The chief thing
to recollect, when roped, is to keep it taut between
each person ; they should be at intervals of about
fifteen feet apart.

t( We had each brought into Kashmir with us an ice-
axe and an alpenstock, or more. Our climb began
now, and we followed each other in a straight line up
the centre of the glacier. We did no talking, keeping
our mouths shut to stave off thirst. Suddenly I heard
an exclamation, and saw, to my horror, the last of G.
disappearing through a little rotten place in the ice,
headlong into a hidden crevasse.

" The strain came upon H. and Chowry, and they
met it as one man. G. was soon hauled out. Our
efforts to peer into the gloomy cleft were baffled by
the curvature of the smooth, polished ice-walls of the
fissure, which sank into the bowels of the glacier.
Thank Heaven, we had been roped ! — the crust of ice
over which H. and G. had walked was indeed thin.

" By-and-by we turned on to a steep bank of snow,
frozen hard on the top, up which we slowly zig-
zagged— very slowly, for H. had to cut steps in it the
whole way, and it was not the sort of place to be
careless on. As we rose higher and higher and turned
some corners, a slip on that glassy slope from one of
us would probably have dragged the whole party to
destruction. I often think it is unwise to be roped in
places of this description.

" We were by this time a great height up, and could

A MOUNTAINEERING PARTY NEAR HARAMUK. {.Page 170.

Kashmir 171

at last see Nanga Parbat ; it was a grand view upon
a grand day. Beneath our feet the glacier swept
proudly from us in beautiful and satisfying curves,
turning corner after corner, then draping itself in its
dark moraine and vanishing in the distance. Blue,
fringed icicles hung in fantastic forms from the ice-
bound rocks around us ; the black ribs of the
mountain piercing the snow were singularly decorative.

" Mountain-climbing grows strangely upon one. You
may hardly care for it at first ; but if the fascination
ever comes, it will last with your life. The scenery
responds to your every mood. It is, to begin with,
the acme of repose, and repose is one of the greatest
latent forces in the world ; it is also the expression of
form and line in their most soul-satisfying sense ; and
it is, in Asia at any rate, far removed beyond the
reach of man to spoil.

" The solemn heights embody the strong and the
abiding — those * everlasting hills * ; the weird crags
are peopled by the ghosts of fancy ; the quiet wastes
of snow speak with unearthly voices. Here, at last,
the still, sad music of humanity can never weary, nor
the sordid stream of life stain.

" Five little black dots in the midst of leagues and
leagues of snow and ice, we continued our climb, till
we were at the top of a ridge. To reach our peak we
had to make a sharp descent, then bear away to the
right over a level plateau, and finally ascend the west
side of our peak by an arete.

" Our shortest way lay down a snow couloir — that is,

A Sportswoman in India

nothing more nor less than a gully partly filled with
snow, often a most useful institution, and the joy of
the mountaineer. Couloirs look prodigiously steep
when seen from the front, but snow does not actually
lie steeper in them than in other places ; this one was
like a half section of a sloping chimney, grooved with
the passage of stones down it.

UA daring leader is a dangerous thing. F. pro-
nounced our best way to lie down the couloir, and
taking H.'s place, cut footholes for our descent. It
certainly was steep. We were going cautiously,
moving one at a time, when suddenly we heard
* Crack ! ' and all our hearts stood still. H., just above
me, said quietly, ' We're done for ! ' The snow had
cracked across just above us, at first only a gape of
half an inch ; but now the crust of the lower half was
slowly beginning to slide downwards, and away we
went on it.

" c Stop ! ' we all shouted instantaneously, dashing
our axes into the underlying ice. They slid over
the hard surface fruitlessly. * Stop ! ' thundered F.,
again and again hewing at the ice. But there was no
stopping. Slowly at first, faster and faster every
moment, we flew down the couloir on our avalanche,
driving up clouds of snow in front of it. Was this
the end?

" The couloir, however, turned a corner before it
reached the bottom, where a wide terrace ended in a
precipice. We all saw that our only chance lay in the
angle, and shouting ' Jump ! ' we all threw ourselves,

WE FLEW DOWN THE COULOIR ON OUR AVALANCHE,
DRIVING UP CLOUDS OF DUST IN FRONT OF IT.

[Page 172.

Kashmir i?3

or sprang, or fell, off the moving snow, against the
rocks, into the corner ; while on rushed the young
avalanche — a mad glissade — down the couloir, across
the flat, and over — out of sight — below — where we
might easily have been lying. . . .

" Having waited till we were steady, we turned into
the couloir once more, and reaching the flat terrace,
we left it on our left. The next snow-field was soon
crossed ; and then followed the last bit and the worst
bit — a steep, rocky arete. Here F. led again, followed
by Chowry, and they literally hauled G. and myself
up after them. The ridge was completely shattered
by frost into nothing more than a heap of piled-up
fragments. It was always narrow, and where it was
narrowest it was also most unstable and most difficult.
We could not ascend it by keeping below the crest,
because it was too steep, and if we had sent down
one stone, all those above would have tumbled down
too ; we were therefore forced to keep to the crest
of the ridge, and, unable to deviate a single step
either to the right or to the left, we were compelled
to trust unsteady masses, which trembled under our
tread, settled down, and grated in a hollow and
ominous way, seeming as though a little shake
would send the whole crumbling down in an awful
avalanche.

" But the top was not far off" now. We came to
a block which was poised across the ridge, with a
gap beyond. We climbed the block, finding it very
unsteady, and were faced by a broadish jump to the

174 A Sportswoman in India

top of the next crag, which would evidently sway
horribly. There was no shame in allowing we were
beaten. We went back, and eventually managed to
creep round beneath both rocks ; but it was the hardest
bit of climbing that day.

" At last the rocks were left behind ; we all stood,
panting, at the top ; then almost a run up an easy
slope of snow to the summit of all things, and the
Silver Throne was ours ! Around us and beneath us
and on every side were sombre, solemn mountain-
peaks, glittering walls, turrets, pinnacles, pyramids,
domes, cones and spires of ice and snow, ' every com-
bination that the world can give, and every contrast
that the heart can desire.' We could not linger long,
hard though it was to leave. Having eaten some
kola biscuits and chocolate, we began to descend by
a different route. It proved to be more difficult than
the other way, and, worse still, we had no time to
spare to come very slowly.

" The rocky arete gave place to an ice-slope fully
a thousand feet long, across which we moved, as
quickly as H., who was once more in front, could
cut steps. To save time we managed with as few
as possible, and I, for one, fully expected an accident.
It came ! The nails in H.'s boots had grown rounded
and smooth ; he suddenly slipped and went flying
forwards. I wildly embraced a handy little knob, and
the rest clung somehow — somewhere — with axes and
finger-nails. Taut came the rope with an awful
strain — it was an unpleasant moment. We were heading

Kashmir i?5

diagonally across the slope, and as we held H. by
the rope, he swung to and fro like a pendulum, and
finally came to anchor, spread-eagled against the
icy face.

" He was quite cool — kept hold of his axe, cut
himself footholes, and got back into his place once
more. A short time after we were safely off the slope,
to our horror a mist came over the mountains, and
quickly thickened, blotting out all traces of our where-
abouts. It was impossible to go on. O ye immortal
gods ! where were we ?

" However, only a quarter of an hour was passed in
despair ; shapes began to loom in front of us, and
the clouds blew off. Taking to our feet once more,
we began to surmount the second ridge ; it proved
to be slippery rock, and our advance was slow and
tedious. The heat at the end of the long afternoon
was growing unbearable ; there was plenty of air up
above, and now and then a refreshing puff quickened
us for the moment into life, but for the most part
we seemed to be in complete aerial stagnation.

" Was life worth living then ? It seemed intolerable.
We sucked ice to allay our thirst, and only grew more
thirsty.

" I longed to cast away my alpenstock, to abandon
everything, as I mechanically struggled on, caring for
nothing, observing nothing, only dimly conscious of
the gloomy depths below, floored by cold, hard glaciers,
rent with fathomless crevasses. In a dull dream one
pictured the ice-steps giving way, and speculated in

A Sportswoman in India

which crevasse, after falling — falling — falling, one
would find oneself.

" Thank Goodness ! the breezy summit brought a
reaction, and with the wind in our faces we prepared
for the last descent. Putting our ' best foot ' fore-
most, we hurried down the slope and over the crisp
ice, having unroped. Unexpectedly we came across
some awkward corners, which had to be circumvented
with care.

" I recollect so well, once, on much the same sort
of day, we were almost running down the last mile or
so into camp, when a bit of bad ground was en-
countered. I held on to the rock with my right hand,
and with my left prodded at the snow with the point
of my alpenstock, until I had made a fairly good step.
Getting carefully round the rock and standing on
the one step, I began to do the same for my other
foot, and so on.

" The other members of the party were, one following
me, the other crossing higher up. Suddenly, in trying
to pass the extreme point of the corner, the snow-steps
gave way — I slipped and fell. It was upon a steep
snow-slope that this took place, at the head of a
long, narrow gully. The gully ended in a couple
of buttresses leading down to the valley — a great
drop — below.

" Of course I was whirled down the snow-slope at
once, fully thinking that the end had come. All sorts
of little, trivial thoughts came into my head, I lost
my stick and pitched on the head of the gully, then

THE LAST GREAT BOUND SPUN ME THROUGH THE AIR THIRTY FEET.

[Page 177.

Kashmir 177

tumbled off the edge of it, bounding down the slope
in great leaps. Luckily it was snowy, and not very
hard falling. But the last great bound spun me through
the air thirty feet, and landed me at full length on
my left side, half buried in snow, on a spot where the
slope was less steep, but uncomfortably near the edge
of the gully and the precipice. I believe I fainted at
that point. At any rate, it was a useful lesson, and not
forgotten on the present occasion.

"As we tramped downwards, glorious lights and
colours were playing upon that most beautiful of
mountains — Haramuk. We longed to turn round, to
linger, and to enjoy. The sun set behind the gap at
Baramoula, sending its brilliant light sweeping over the
Wular Lake and bathing Haramuk in glory. Our
long shadows hurried before us apace, as though they
would hasten towards the wondrous East. Gradually
the valley was steeped in purple shadow, the snows lost
their fiery tinge, and night I came on apace.

" Was that the blue smoke of our camp-fire ? Not
long, and we were back in our tents, realising, as one
does at the end of a real hard day, such content as
is given to few, and to them but seldom in any
lifetime.

" And over those drinks which are reserved for the
faithful, we vowed that Kashmir is the country to
visit, that mountain-climbing is a game worth the
candle."

12

CHAPTER VII

FOURTEEN THOUSAND FEET HIGH

Yem Sar Pass — Marmots — In a House-boat —
Srinagar— Suffering Moses— Shalimar Bagh —
Woman as a Traveller — In Camp Again — Native
Servants — Black Bears — NoLuck — Pine-marten s.

179

CHAPTER VI

FOURTEEN THOUSAND FEET HIGH

The glaciers creep

Like snakes that watch their prey, from their iar fountains,
Slowly rolling on ; there, many a precipice
Frost and the sun in scorn of mortal power
Have piled — dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,
A city of death, distinct with many a tower
And wall impregnable of gleaming ice.

SHELLEY.

ALL this time S. and I were getting no shooting,
one of the reasons for which you will find
in Colonel Ward's book on Kashmir. Against July,
August, and September it is written that these months
are the worst three in all the year for sport in that
country, there being little else but bears to be had.
There was just a chance of a bar a singh, too. We
decided to get away westward, back into the country
near Soper, taking on our way Srinagar, the capital
of Kashmir. Having come up the Sind Valley, we
should see fresh country by going back down the
Lidder Valley, and it was possible to cross from
the head of the one to the other by the pass over
Yem Sar, but this route is not to be recommended
to any inactive individual.

We left Sonamerg on September ist, and rode

181

1 82 A Sportswoman in India

down the Sind Valley to Koolan, where we found
the vast paraphernalia of the Resident's camp. Sir
Adalbert Talbot and party were on their way
up to Sonamerg, and, luckily for us, happened to
have come up the Lidder and across by the Yem
Sar Pass ; thereby making things plain sailing for
us, every inch of the road having been doctored
religiously in view of the advent of so elite a party.
Their great camp itself, under the chenars, looked
more like an imposing fair than any other spectacle,
with its tents of all shapes and sizes, and of all
hues. There were tents to sleep in, to breakfast
in, to sit in, and to dine in. As for their colossal
caravan of mules and baggage, it seemed endless,
and, beginning to meet the vanguard at Sonamerg,
we continued to pass it on the path for several miles,
and at last left the rearguard behind not far from
Koolan. It blocked our little transport considerably,
and one of our poor mules, laden, was pushed over
the edge of the path and thrown into the river
below in trying to pass the string of mules coming
up, which were also laden.

After the baggage we got into the stream of personal
servants, and met mounted flocks of beringed and
befrilled ayahs astride on mules, accompanied by
apathetic males in gorgeous uniforms, carrying their
hookahs and chattering of "pice and rice" — the sole
topic of native conversation (money and food). These
were followed by cooks, cooks' mates, bhistis, sweepers,
servants of every caste. Last of all we met Sir

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 183

Adalbert and the two Misses Talbot, with three
or four other English people, bearing a supply of
cameras, and with heaps of information for us about
the road. We should find it almost impracticable
from this side, was the gist thereof. In view of
this, we sent our own ponies straight on to Srinagar
by the Sind route, with their syces — Mary, Jorm,
and Sedju ; ourselves hiring tats from Koolan to
go up to Yem Sar and across to Lidderwat.

We camped at Koolan, and the next morning
had tents and all packed by 6.30 a.m. on nine ponies,
and had started on the great ascent. It took us
four hours to do seven miles, which gives some idea
of the steepness of the path. It was not only steep,
but terribly slippery with rain, and riding was quite
out of the question. I held on to my pony's long,
grey tail, and she towed me up a great part of the
way ; the baggage had several times to be taken off
the ponies, and carried for some distance by panting,
sweating coolies.

We topped the Sind Valley at last ; deodar forests,
moss, and muddy channels were left behind ; we struck
out across open mountain. Clouds kept coming round
us, and showers of rain. Our camp that night at Yem
Sar was in a memorable spot. I see inscribed in my
diary, " Opened a bottle of brandy." (I remember it
was cold.) We were close to a little snow-water tarn,
steel-blue, reflecting the glaciers and rocky peaks,
which rose abruptly in sheer walls of shale and ice from
the water's edge. We were up at a height of about

184 A Sportswoman in India

fourteen thousand feet, and we warmed our backs
with satisfaction at a great wood fire outside the
tents, a wonderful moon glimmering over the white
wastes.

Next morning we had a heavy business getting all
our baggage-ponies safely over the ridge above the
tarn ; but it was done at last, and the rest of the
march, downhill all the way to Lidderwat, was simple
enough — some of the finest country too, in Kashmir.
Wandering up on these heights possesses a fascination
not to be met with in marching through the valleys.

By the boulders of the glacier torrents we came
across numerous burra chuars (big rats — as the
natives call marmots). They live high up in the snowy
regions of the mountains, generally preferring exposed
cliffs or stony expanses, whence they may have a clear
view of approaching danger.

The first thing we heard was a piercing whistle,
shrill and uncanny, and looking about, at last discovered
a marmot seated on the top of a rock over his own
burrow. He was about three feet long, and had
reddish brown fur with a black stripe down his back ;
he sat up on his hind-legs at Mention, acting sentinel,
while his relatives were basking in the sun or else
running actively about in search of food. His shrill
and impertinent little whistle told us we had been seen,
and directly we tried to get closer he whisked into his
burrow. Marmots live on roots and leaves, seeds and
berries ; like squirrels, they eat with their paws. For
their winter quarters they make a large round burrow,

MARMOTS.

[Page 184.

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 185

with but one entrance, and ending in a sleeping-place
thickly padded with dry grass.

Here often from ten to fifteen marmots pass the
winter, all lying closely packed together, until the
spring. On awaking, hungry with their long fast,
they remove the hay with which they stuff up the
doors of their burrows, and begin again their watchful,
active lives. In the early summer a pair will have
from four to six young ones. We were rather anxious
to shoot one, but had nothing with us except a bullet
which would have blown a burra chuar into fragments.
So the little sentinels sat up and whistled unmolested.

Into Lidderwat was a long and steep descent of
several miles ; at last we were right down in the
Lidder Valley, and selecting for our camping-
ground by the river the spot which the Resident and
his retinue had evidently occupied only four nights
before. Why they always left all their tent-pegs
behind we wondered ; but they came in most usefully
as firewood, collected in bundles by the servants from
each camp.

We found Captain Molyneux, 1 2th Bengal Cavalry,
hard at work painting on the banks of the river. Not
long before he had been awarded the Viceroy's gold
medal at the Simla Exhibition for the second time,
and he was now collecting more material for some
large oils.

S. and I encamped three nights at Lidderwat, riding
one day with Captain Molyneux up to the head of
the valley, as far as it is possible to march, right on

1 86 A Sportswoman in India

to the great glacier across the moraine. Here again
we found a huge ice-cavern formed by the Lidder
as it rushes from beneath the glacier ; we stood in the
cave — it would be hard to say how many yards of
solid ice above our heads.

The mountain Kolohoi, as seen from the head of
the Lidder, is exceptionally grand — an abrupt peak,
with one immense glacier dividing it from the main
range. Lovely as Lidderwat was, we could not afford
to stay there long, and we were soon on the march
again down the valley.

Our next camp, Pailgam, was much warmer, the
elevation being considerably less : it was a pretty little
place, quite an English settlement, every one living in
log huts or tents in the pine-woods. The Lidder
Valley, as compared with the Sind Valley, may be upon
a small scale and less grand, but it is quite as beautiful
in its way — silver birches covering the mountain-sides,
and stretching over the river from either bank. But
the wretched goat-herds, the bukri-w alters, have much
to answer for in the Lidder Valley : it is a sin and a
shame to see the branches lopped and the naked,
ruined trunks, all for the sake of the foliage as fodder
for their miserable goats.

From our camp every evening S. and Lalla went
out regularly and sat in the mucky (Indian cornfields)
watching for bears. Though the Kashmiris' crops
generally bore traces of these nightly marauders, all
their efforts were fruitless.

From the last camp they made a longer expedition,

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 187

and proposed to catch me up at night. I set off there-
fore alone, on a tat, with our baggage mules behind,
at 8 a.m. Armudneera, who was our dak coolie, and
whom we sent periodically backwards and forwards
to our agents, Cockburn & Co., in Srinagar, with and
for our mails, walked on ahead showing the way.
The Lidder Valley was gradually opening out, and
throughout the day the Happy Valley itself grew nearer
and nearer, until at last we were fairly in it and down
in the flat once more.

I rode off the path to see the ruins of Martund
Temple — " the Temple of the Sun "—one of the most
ancient buildings in Kashmir. It dates back two
hundred years before Christ. Its massive walls of
gaunt red granite, with their huge, trefoil-headed door-
ways and recesses, their high pediments and immense
fluted pillars, strike one as memorials likely to last as
long as Kashmir itself. The temple is in a fine position
on a natural terrace, commanding a splendid view of
the valley of the Jhelum. It was built in the Hindu
period, but like all the Kashmir ruins, differs a little in
architecture from the Indian Hindu.

Three miles beyond Martund, and I arrived at
Islamabad, about 4.30 p.m. ; and walking down to the
river, found doonghas or kishties (house-boats) in plenty
from which to make a selection.

That evening saw us started upon what, after
marching through the hot valley, was a delightful
change. Picture the laziest, sleepiest, sunniest time
in the world, on a great, broad, quiet river, in the

1 88 A Sportswoman in India

funniest of boats ever seen. Our doongha was some-
thing like a house-boat, but too rough to be dignified
by such a name. It was really more like a very long,
big punt, filled up with stout, rough poles tied together
in a sort of framework with rope and straw, upon which
was hung grass matting to form a roof and protection
from the sun. Matting hung down at the sides, but
could be rolled up and tied with a string, so that
one might have an uninterrupted view of the country
as one sat in the doongha and floated along. The
boat was divided by matting into little compartments :
in the first we sat, with our two camp-chairs and
rugs, and made ourselves very comfortable ; in the
second, push aside the matting, and one stepped into
a little rough compartment in which my camp-bed
was put up and I slept ; in the third, behind another
bit of matting, S. slept ; and at the extreme end of
the boat sat a couple of Kashmiris silently working
us along with a paddle each — a thing only about four
feet long, and heart-shaped at one end. The boat-
men's families were in another kishty of the same
sort, together with Sala Bux, Lalla, Armudneera, the
bhistiy cook, and sweeper. They followed us at a
respectful distance.

We left Islamabad that evening, and were soon
gliding silently between banks covered with flowers,
through the still, warm air. An hour later and the
servants' kishty was paddled up alongside ; dinner was
ready. It had been cooked over an extraordinary little
clay fireplace in the bottom of the punt. Sala Bux

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 189

proceeded to hand us in, from their boat on to the
floor of ours, hot plates ; soup followed ; then a
roast leg of mutton with potatoes and tomatoes ; next
rumble-tumble — as natives always call buttered eggs ;
lastly stewed pears and custard. Finally, plates were
removed, the servants' kishty fell back behind us, and
we paddled along.

When it grew dark, a light was fastened ahead, and
we passed several other doonghasy some of them singing
weird chants — natives evidently. We drifted under
dark, wooden, ghostly-looking bridges ; the moon
rose ; the land seemed all asleep ; and the drip and
gurgle of our paddles in the water was the only sound.

In our own camp-beds we had a real, long, lazy
night, and a true Europe morning, for breakfast came
off at ten o'clock !

All night long the rhythmical sound of the paddling
lulled one to sleep. I awoke once or twice to hear
S. cursing the lazy boatmen, who had stopped working
altogether and were just allowing us to drift. Renewed
efforts followed, and the doongha glided through the
water faster than ever, until, I expect, we were both
asleep again.

I lay in bed hours after the sun had risen, and
rolling up a bit of the matting by my side, stretched
my arm out and dabbled in the warm water. It was
an odd little place to tub and to dress in. S. took
a header off the punt and had a few minutes' swim.

The Jhelum recalls vividly the Thames near Staines,
except that everywhere in the distance we could see

190 A Sportswoman in India

mountains, covered at the tops with snow. Indeed,
we could see little else above the river banks, the vale
was so flat. One might, as I have said before, easily
spend a summer in this way on the Jhelum and its
tributaries, mooring the doongha, and making ex-
peditions up into the hills from any place which took
one's fancy, such as Manasbal and a thousand others.

If only impecunious friends at home could be trans-
ferred to this land of plenty, of ideal climate, of ideal
scenery, and ideal bills ! Our first week's expenses
for living, for two people, are worth recording. We
were said to have got through six chickens, one goose,
one duck, and one leg of mutton ; pears and apples
for cooking every day, as many eggs and vegetables
every day, and as much butter and milk every day,
as we could possibly consume ; the whole of this,
together with firewood and little etceteras, cost us not
quite nine shillings. Add to this the trifling hire of
a doongha and the small pittance of wages to two or
three servants ; take a tent, some books, sketching
materials, and a gun ; and one might roam over the
Vale of Kashmir, and into its glorious mountains,
from April to November, living upon a mere nothing
and thoroughly enjoying the life.

This time in our doongha was a capital one for
writing letters and for reading newspapers ; but the
day soon passed, and the hill close to Srinagar, our
destination, known as Takht-i-Suliman, grew nearer
and nearer, until at last we found ourselves in a wide
reach of water, gaily painted house-boats moored on

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 191

either side underneath the great, shady chenars, and
upon the banks tents of every shape and kind.

This, then, was the European quarter of Srinagar ;
the native city lay beyond. There are various camping-
grounds — the Chenar Bagh, the Nishat Bagh, the
Munshi Bagh, the Shalimar Bagh, etc., some near and
some far from the native city.

We took up a central position on Topa, a semi-
island, which had the advantage of being near the
polo-ground, the post office, and the agency. Our
tents were soon up ; and as we were sitting down to
tea, the familiar face of Mary beamed upon us with
the two syce s and three ponies. Mary had " lost
count " of his age ; but he could not have been more
than twenty years old, though he had a wife and a
son down in Madras. He always reminded me of a
monkey, wearing a little loose white shirt, very tight,
white trousers, and a small blue turban. He had bow
legs and long, bare feet. He always spoke in the
present tense, coming* up every morning and saying
to S., " What time master wanting ponies ? " He
was an excellent groom, a real honest boy.

The little Arab ponies were wonderfully quiet and
childlike, removing flies on the march off their ears
with a hind hoof, and walking casually across the
narrowest plank. They were apt to catch up branches
in their long tails, when I would make the pony I
rode tread on the branch and release them of it.

A game of polo was going on, and we strolled across
after tea to find all our old Gulmerg friends, who had,

192 A Sportswoman in India

in the course of the last month, migrated to serener
climes at Srinagar, where the temperature was much
higher. Four weeks in camp seemed to have done a
good deal in their eyes to weather and to sunburn us.

The next morning, hiring a small kishty and a
couple of natives to paddle us, we went off down
the river into the city. Lazily reclining on cushions,
it was rather like being in a gondola in Venice once
again, and if Srinagar had a little more gorgeous
colouring it would be a second Venice. Perhaps the
mountain ranges round the vale and the chenars on
the banks made up for that.

The city is supposed to have been built in the
sixth century. It is a somewhat confused mass
of houses, overhanging either side of the wide river
and the smaller canals, which in many places form
the only streets. The wooden houses, of rough-hewn
timbers, stained and weathered into rich tones of
grey and brown, are picturesque to a degree, with
balconies and carved lattice windows, and projecting
upper stories propped on carved poles. There are no
less than seven bridges across the river, built of beams
laid on timber and stone piers. There is the Rajah's
Palace, and several small Hindu temples in the city,
with two chief mosques. Above Srinagar rises its
landmark, the hill known as Solomon's Throne, Takht-
i-Suliman, with an old Hindu temple at the very top.
Because every one told us that we must not miss
the violent climb and the view from the summit on
any account, we carefully avoided it.

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 193

Kashmir always calls up to the mind visions of
shawls ; and the annual tribute of the Maharajah,
presented in token of the supremacy of the British
Government, is still, as the treaty reads : " One
horsey twelve perfect shawl-goats of approved breed,
six male and six female, and three pairs of Kashmir
shawls" A few years ago a quarter of the inhabitants
of Srinagar were shawl-weavers, but the reduced demand
for shawls has lessened the proportion.

We were paddled downstream under several bridges
to a skin-curing native, who lived in the midst of
many ramifications among the wooden houses. We
unearthed his room at last, and arranged with him
to cure roughly any skins we might get, before
sending them home to England. After much haggling,
I bought rather a curious leopard-skin rug, and a
marmot skin was thrown in as backsheesh. We saw
some rather fine heads and a snow leopard skin — a
beautiful trophy — shot that spring.

From this gentleman we went to the shop of
Suffering Moses, well known to every visitor in
Srinagar. He had already visited our camp that
morning and had left his card, which bore the following
inscription : —

M. H. SUFFDUR MOGOL.

SUFFERING MOSES.

PAPIER MACHI MAKER AND WOOD CARVER.
NEW BAZOR. SRINAGAR,

194 A Sportswoman in India

Suffering Moses, as he is always called, and now calls
himself, no sooner caught sight of us on the river, than
he was into a kishty and after us. At last, personally
conducted to his own bazaar, we were invited to sit
down and given tea, of a sort, out of a curious brass
teapot, and some very trying little yellow biscuits to
eat, while the Sufferer, an old bearded man, who,
after the manner of the East, had dyed his beard bright
red, and wore a skull-cap and a long garment trimmed
with -fur, displayed his papier mache and ornamental
painted woodwork, his carved wood and copper tables,
and his silver and silver-gilt bowls, goblets, candlesticks,
photo-frames, boxes, and what not. From a vast
selection we made various choices, to be packed then
and there and sent direct to England. This he fulfilled
to the letter.

We next visited a shop for puttoo, where I bought
a puttoo hat and some extra warm garments ; lastly,
we spent some time buying more stores and groceries
for the next two months in camp up the passes.

On our return to our tents on Topa we were
pestered once more with natives selling jewelry, silks,
silver, lacquer- work, etc. A carpenter, tailor, and
washerwoman soon turned up, and the two first were
presently sitting cross-legged under the trees, mending
and patching our torn, worn, and broken effects, Our
bedding hung all over the apple-trees airing ; and
it was altogether a funny scene for a luncheon party
we gave that afternoon.

India is a very poor country for fruiti; Kashmir,

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 195

at the right season, is not, and immense baskets of
great yellow pears and peaches were brought us at
all times of the day for the sum of a few coppers.
Cooky laid in stores of vegetables.

We spent the afternoon with a party from the
Residency in an expedition in boats across the Dhal
Lake, with a view to picnicing in some of the old
gardens on its banks, our boats racing each other
at spasmodic intervals, dictated by the impulse of the
Kashmiris who paddled us. A canal leads into the
Dhal Lake — an immense stretch of the calmest of
water, covered in places with great lotus leaves and
their heavy pink blossoms, while in every open reach
our boats cut into the reflexions of the snow
mountains.

In some places, upon sheets of the broad water-lily
leaves, a shallow layer of soil is actually upheld, and
grows vegetables in abundance. These floating gardens
are secured by an occasional <c punt " pole to the bottom
of the lake, which prevents their drifting hither and
thither ; they were covered with tomatoes, grapes,
peaches, cauliflowers, potatoes, etc.

We were paddled across, in the course of an hour
or. so, to the Shalimar Bagh, one of the old pleasure-
gardens of the Moguls, where we all scrambled out.
The crumbling, grey stone steps up from the water's
edge, the green terraces, the cool, thick plane-trees,
the stone walks, and the fountains were all redolent
of the old luxurious Mogul race, of moonlight, music,
and wine, of the sensuous and aromatic East. We

196 A Sportswoman in India

had, however, a very up-to-date tea on one of the
shadiest lawns.

An extraordinary dust-storm came on quite suddenly
the next day in the middle of a luncheon party at
the Chenar Bagh — the bachelors' quarters. Everything
we were eating in a few minutes tasted of dust, and
was dust, and nothing else : it lasted for half an hour.

S. played polo that afternoon, and more snow fell
on the mountains, which augured ill for us later on,
if we got up to high altitudes. A wonderful sunset
lit up the fresh snow like pink fire. We dined at
the Residency ; and next day made final arrangements
for leaving Srinagar in the evening, providing ourselves
with chuplies, among other things (the Kashmir
sandal and leather sock), most comfortable on the
march.

Before we left, Captain and Mrs. Davies (guides)
had a paper-chase on horseback, to which we sent
the ponies ; and paddling across the Dhal Lake, we
all met at their camp at the Nishat Bagh. Quite a
party inhabited this camp, a little colony of tents, and
we had a real " meet " under the chenars, though it
was an odd time of day for a hunt. Captain S. (9th
Lancers) and Captain Davies carried the scent in bags
across their backs ; Mrs. Davies rode with them. We
gave the hares ten minutes' start, and stood talking
till our huntsman called " Time ! " when every one
jumped on their ponies and galloped off" for all they
were worth.

We got out of the grass fields of the camping-

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 19?

ground by a ditch, which half of the ponies, who had
never been jumped before, refused ; the scent lay thick
across the next field, which had been ploughed for
sowing, and it was nice, soft going. We jumped over
a small hedge into a buckwheat field, and here it was
as hard as iron. The scent was rather " catchy " — either
a big handful strewing the ground thickly, or an
interval without any ; and we were sometimes cantering
all over the field, to find, perhaps, that the hares had
turned sharp up a hedgerow, and were away on our
right or left, as it might be.

S. got into a bog after we had gone across a rice
field, and the pony came over on his side, but they
were none the worse. We ran on well till we came
to a small canal with an awkward place to ride under
or over, and a very narrow bridge beyond. Some
of the hounds led their ponies under, others over,
others were low enough to squeeze underneath without
getting off. We tailed over the bridge with much
pushing and jostling, and getting into the field, spread
out fanwise over it, hunting for the scent, which
stopped dead after twenty or thirty yards — never a
sign,—

Into the middle of the field, and further was there none !

Suddenly a halloo back ! — the cunning hares had
doubled under again by the canal, and were, no doubt,
by this time speeding away across the vale. We
squeezed and clambered back over the canal, and got
on the line again right-handed, galloping all we knew.

A Sportswoman in India

From this time until the end of the hunt, which
brought us back once more to the Nishat Bagh, the
proceedings resolved themselves into a race ; there
was a burning scent and the country was very negoti-
able— banks and ditches, practically nothing more. We
crossed maize field after field, and rather hard going
they were ; finally we got on to some grass, and en-
countered an infant brook with a single plank over
it, across which a very clever pony or two walked,
but I think most of the field preferred a fling at the
open water.

Then clumps of chenars in the distance : had they
not a suspicious look of the Nishat Bagh about them ?
And where, in the name of fortune, were those precious
hares ? Harden your hearts and race for the camp !
Every hound laid his legs to the ground, but the
proverbial sheet would hardly have covered the pack,
which stretched over half a mile of country ! Down
a lane we split, across the sound turf we rattle, tents
come into sight, and the last five hundred yards end
in a masterly " finish." There are the three good
hares, bearing every trace of having been more or
less pressed, deep in long whiskies-and-sodas, swearing
that they had been at least five minutes " in cover."

We hounds were fairly beaten ! Tea and liqueurs,
for which the Shiny is so justly renowned, followed ;
let us hope the ponies' legs were none the worse !
We were paddled back again, and joined a cheery
dinner party later on at the Chenar Bagh.

Such is life at Srinagar. We were off next morning.

- '• j

l( ' '• •

i

•

1

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 199

It was colder, and rained steadily. Striking tents in
wet weather is rather a miserable business, and we were
considerably damped, mentally and externally, by the
time Lalla brought up a couple of boats below our
island, and had had all our stores and baggage
stowed away in the driest places these kishties can
boast of.

The particular specimen he had selected for us was
very second-rate, and we only accepted it at all to
save time. It was farewell to the ponies for a long
while ; as they could not stand snow and rough
marches, we sent them back through Murree and
Rawal Pindi to Mian Mir by road. I forget now
how many weeks it took them to cover the distance,
but we found them safely arrived on our own return.

Picture us once more afloat in a doongha, making the
best of our way down the Jhelum to Soper. Even
Kashmir is not all milk and honey, and we tasted of
the seamy side on this occasion. The matting which
covered the doongha hung down low and dark ; it
was only possible to stand upright in the middle ; the
front end was open, and the rain and wind beat in.
It was, in fact, like sitting in a funnel, bitterly cold.
We covered ourselves with all the available rugs and
blankets we possessed, and sat and shivered. A dirty
rag and some matting divided this part of the boat
from another dark place in our rear, in which I slept.
Beyond my partition, and behind a second rag and
matting, slept the boatmen, their wives and children.
S. lay down in the place we sat in.

200 A Sportswoman in India

As soon as possible we cut short such a wretched
day by going to bed. The whole boat was infested
with mice, which were scurrying over the floor, among
the matting, and across my bedclothes all night. There
was no room or place to unpack or wash either, in
these very confined quarters. I lay down, minding
the mice less than the boatmen's families, who were
in painfully close proximity, and who grunted and
snored — peal after peal — the whole night long. In
vain I shouted at them. If they awoke, and for ten
minutes there was silence, they began again after that
lapse of time, as surely as does night follow day.

Morning dawned with a bright sky, the matting
was rolled up, and we sat at breakfast in warm sun-
shine, the river banks, valley, and mountains looking
more lovely than ever. A few hours and we were
at Soper. The servants in their kishty seemed to have
recovered their spirits, though Sala Bux complained
bitterly of fever, and consumed many capsules of
phenacetin with which we provided him. It need
never be feared that a native will endure the least
discomfort in stoical silence.

Both of us were very well satisfied to be starting on
a shoot again. Sight-seeing palls, the most enchanting
country after a time loses its first keen attraction, and
needs a soupfon of adventure and of action, behind
which it can sink into its own natural position of a
beautiful background. Many people are quite content
to journey across the Indian Ocean, to find their
pleasure solely in Anglo-Indian society, and in seeing

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 201

Delhi, Agra, and a few more places which the horrors
of the Mutiny surround with a morbid interest.

It is unkindly said that the gentler sex are shipped
across to the East, provided with costly trousseaux,
for the mere purpose of meeting gallant captains and
prosperous chief commissioners, noble Benedicts who
for many years have run the gauntlet of the pick of
the very limited ladies1 society up country, coming
unscathed out of the fire, and are only destined now
to fall before the latest coiffure from home.

I am afraid this old wives' tale no longer holds
water, and that the palmy days for the women have
followed in the wake of other " good old days." It
is so easy to run home on three months' leave— every
subaltern does it ; it is so easy to run out from
England — every wife and every sister does it ; and
thus it comes to pass that there is nothing new under
the sun ; that matrimony cannot pose as an unknown
and intoxicating Paradise ; in short, familiarity and
close inspection betray the copper through the Sheffield
plate.

But time has changed the Mem-sahib, too — more of
that presently ; suffice it to say that there are, every
year, women who come out, and who travel over the
globe, with the object of seeing other sides of that
interesting individual, man, other corners of the
world, other occupations, and other sports — women,
in short, who will enjoy a little discomfort for the
sake of experience.

To rove about in gipsy fashion, meeting with trifling

202 A Sportswoman in India

adventures from time to time, is a complete change
for an ordinary English girl ; and it is very easy to
find every scope for developing self-control and energy
in many a " tight corner " if such occasions are sought
for. Englishmen are supposed to possess an insatiable
desire for slaying something ; a healthily minded woman
has invariably a craving to do something. She is
fortunate if she satisfies it.

Vain dreams, again and again retold,

Must you crowd on the weary brain,
Till the fingers are cold that entwin'd of old

Round staff and trigger and rein,
Till stayed for aye are the roving feet,

Till the restless hands are quiet,
Till the stubborn heart has forgotten to beat,

Till the hot blood has ceased to riot ?

Srinagar and our marches through the valleys, though
charming, were welcomely exchanged for a more
adventurous month, upon which we could look back
afterwards, and feel that we had put in a chapter of
stirring life, and had played the game a little.

We slept one night at Soper. Who does not know
the thrill of feeling with which one starts upon the
unknown, those great expectations which are half the
battle ? The day called us about five — a beautiful
morning it was, a westerly wind still blowing strong,
but the clouds all blown away to China.

Our line of coolies, stooping under the burden
of the tents and kilters, was at last under way ; and
piloted by Lalla, S. and I followed, with a small

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 203

tat to ride between us. The saddle would have
astonished some of the, frequenters of the Row. It
was a fearful and wonderful wooden arrangement,
a square-shaped peak at the back, a slanting rise
in front, and a native blanket over all. The bottoms
of the stirrups were solid, round pieces of wood, like
saucers. But really it was not at all uncomfortable
for rough, scrambling work, and I could be on and
off in a moment.

We left the Jhelum at our backs and struck up
the valley of the Pohru. It was good to see the
thick forests growing nearer, to hear talk of bears,
and after the doongha to be out in the country, once
more "on the open road." The song of the open
road is, as it has been said, one of Nature's spiritual
ditties not yet set to words or human music, except
by Walt Whitman. It is an air which must have
haunted the ears of the gipsies — "the invitation to
the road " — and to whose inspiration our own nomadic
forefathers must all their days have journeyed. To
be out in the air ! — to be under the sky ! — how
much it all implies !

The lungs with the living gas grow light,
And the limbs feel the strength of ten,
While the chest expands with its maddening might,

God's GLORIOUS OXYGEN.

By the evening we were duly encamped at Netanissa,
right on the banks of the Pohru, and in a green,
quiet orchard, which fringed the great jungles. We

204 A Sportswoman in India

had leave from Sir A. Talbot to shoot here — one of
the Rajah's private preserves.

Everything was flourishing down in this valley :
tomatoes grew abundantly, also curious little plum-
cherry things, and big pears, apples, mulberries ;
above all, walnut-trees — such gigantic, gnarled old
trunks, leaves and walnuts lying thick on the ground
under them. These are no travellers' tales ; believe
me, vegetarians would lose their heads in Kashmir.

Sala Bux, recovered from fever, was as annoying
as usual. As S. put on his coat that evening, he
found one of the buttons missing. Now, I had
seen dear Sala Bux sewing at the coat before tea,
and I wondered — a foolish wonder — that he had not
noticed the button. S. called him up and spoke
severely to him, and Sala Bux retired to grovel about
on his hands and knees in S.'s tent, hunting for it
in an aimless way.

S. put the coat on, and as he did so, felt something
hard in the place where the button should have been.
He looked — Sala Bux had evidently, when I
noticed him, been sewing it firmly on to the wrong
side of the coat — inside, in spite of the fact that
there were all the remaining buttons on the outside
to guide him. We asked him to explain why he
had not shown us this. He would give no reason,
no answer, but only salaamed with clasped hands.
Natives have no capacity for seeing jokes ; they never
laugh. Their eyes have been described as two unseeing,
unfathomable pools, at which one gazes and gazes,

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 205

speculating upon what may be at the bottom, below
that unreadable surface — as to whether, indeed, there
is any bottom ?

Being by this time quite hardened, I never began
by assuming that a native was speaking the truth.
It is a weary platitude to say that there are exceptions ;
but I well remember my ayah, the best servant I had,
and whom I considered irreproachable, having a large
extra box put upon one of our tongas above and
beyond her allowance of luggage, and when an aide-de-
camp told her it must come up afterwards in a bullock-
cart, he informed me that she promptly replied, " Oh !
it must go — some of the Miss Sahib's things in it."
I need hardly say I was not in the habit of allowing
my things to be packed in a native's box.

Our camp outfit soon began to suffer in the hands
of the coolies again ; things ought to be made of
cast-iron to survive. Our teapot lid was wrenched
off at the hinges, our galvanised iron bath had three
holes knocked in it, our table was broken, our camp-
stool smashed, etc. But we had an excellent servant
in Cooky, and as we had provided only the bare
necessaries of cooking, we had no right to grumble
at his primitive methods.

I did not, however, appreciate seeing him get out
brown sugar for our tea from a paper packet in his
fingers, and then pat it down into an old cigarette
box — our sugar-basin. I inadvertently saw the milk-
jug being cleaned one day — merely a dirty rag stuck
on to a stick and thrust into the jug. Our com-

2o6 A Sportswoman in India

missariat was often ba,dly packed, too — cake being
saturated with sardine oil, having been packed cheek
to cheek with an open sardine-tin. This was a
trifle.

I remember Sala Bux once forgot to pack S.'s
mackintosh. He gave it, therefore, to a coolie to carry.
At the end of the march he brought it to us, and it
was necessary to hang it up at once, spread out in the
open, when several crows promptly appeared, and
perched, pecking, upon it, as they do upon sheep
at home.

It was a silent and thickly wooded jungle which
closed around us at our backs at Netanissa ; the river
was deep, flowing without a sound; and the country,
appearing to be little inhabited, should be exceedingly
likely for bear.

The Himalayan black bear is essentially a forest-
loving animal, and seldom ascends above twelve
thousand feet ; he does not, like the red bear, delight
in digging for roots on the grassy slopes immediately
below the snow-line. He is a larger and heavier
animal than the Indian bear, and occasionally, certainly,
he proves a formidable antagonist.

Colonel Kinloch says in his well-known book :
" I have known more than one British officer killed
by black bears, while one constantly meets with natives
who have been terribly mutilated in encounters with
one of the species ; but these accidents have usually
occurred when the animal has been attacked or suddenly
met with in thick cover, where the bear had every

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 207

advantage." Little as we expected it, we were
unfortunately destined to meet with a bear under
these aspects.

The black bear is a thorough gourmand, and shifts
his quarters so as to be within easy reach of the
delicacies of the season, whatever they may be. In the
jungle he will put up with roots, berries, scorpions,
ants, acorns, or such other trifles as he may meet with
during his wanderings ; but as the various cereals and
fruits ripen in the vicinity of the villages, he takes up
his abode in some well-wooded ravine or tangled copse
within easy reach of the fields and orchards, and
plunders them regularly every night. Maize and
buckwheat among grains, apricots and walnuts among
fruits, are his favourite food, and he is partial to
mulberries, clambering up the trees, devouring and
shaking down the ripe fruit. At times he likes to
vary his usual vegetarian diet, and takes to killing
sheep, cattle, and ponies. Like the rest of his race,
he has a passion for honey.

The next day was, I believe, one of the longest I ever
spent, and one of the most delightful, albeit devoid of
any great excitement. It merits description, however,
for it must be borne in mind that it is not every day,
nor indeed in one day out of seven, that success crowns
the sportsman's efforts ; there must perforce be many
" blank " occasions, which should be chronicled if any
true idea is to be given of what shooting bigger game
means.

We were called by Sala Bux at 4.30 a.m., and were

208 A Sportswoman in India

sitting outside at breakfast by 5 o'clock, the grass
covered with dew, and grey dawn just stealing over
the country. There was an air of suppressed excite-
ment at that hour when starting was so near, and the
morning before us might contain so much of the
unexpected. Preparations were being made all round,
and one of the most important items in the shoot, the
beating of the jungle, had to be arranged.

The headman of the district had been interviewed
beforehand, and arrangements made between him and
Lalla for natives to beat for us. We had about a
hundred and fifty this time ; they were all made to sit
down outside our camp, squatting in a great circle.
The noise which those natives made it would be hard
to describe — such a jabbering, vociferating, clamour-
ing, shouting. Lalla and the servants patrolled the
circle inside and tried to keep order with switches.

Each of the coolies was given a scrap of initialed
paper, which they had to show at the end of the day
before they were paid ; otherwise many defaulters,
who have not borne the burden and brunt of the beats,
will creep in with the rest, towards evening, and try to
get equal pay. As far as possible, we chose out only
strong and younger men, for old ones are worse than
useless. But Lalla, as usual, allowed a greybeard or
two to creep in.

The beaters wore nothing beyond a loincloth and a
puggaree ; they hid their pieces of paper in one or
the other, or often one of them took charge of half a
dozen and tied them carefully up into a corner of his

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 209

waistcloth. Each was provided with a good stout
stick ; but a stick is, after all, remarkably poor protec-
tion against the charge of any big animal, and perhaps
it was small wonder that they beat very badly, keeping
together in twos and threes instead of spreading out
singly. Three were provided with rough drums — tom-
toms— which might be heard miles off.

The whole hundred and fifty were arrant cowards,
and nothing but the lure of annas (for which a native
would sell his soul) would have induced one of them
to come with us. Certainly the roll of natives who
have been injured and killed when beating is a long
one ; but as a rule they suffer entirely from their own
want of proper caution and lack of common sense.

S. and I had a couple of tats, and rode along at a
walk to the scene of the first honk (beat), our army
of beaters going on before us. Before we were quite
in the jungle they were all sent on ahead in two
parties with the headman and another native. S. and
I left the ponies ; and preceded by Lalla and the
chota shikari^ we crept and scrambled along by tiny
paths through the undergrowth, now forcing our
way under branches, now scaling slopes which the
pine-needles made slippery as ice.

Lalla had, of course, had khubr (tidings) beforehand
that a bear had been seen going into this particular
patch. He pointed out the tracks of one in some
soft mud along the path : " Hdrpat !" (" Bear ! ") It
was really a most human footmark, exceedingly like
a very much enlarged native's.

210 A Sportswoman in India

At last we reached a clear space on a sort of ridge,
which cut across the jungle, running all down the
side of the hill on which we were. By standing in
a position which commanded the backbone of the
ridge, S. could get a shot along it on either side ; had
there been three guns instead of one, any bear crossing
the ridge should be a dead one ; as it was, there was
a good deal of luck about it. S. and I sat down in
the shade, waiting until the beaters began ; Lalla close
to us, eagerly scanning the hillside with glasses ; and
the chota shikari, with our bottle of cold tea and the
spare eight-bore duck-gun, crouched in some bushes.

It was a grand spot to wait and watch in — trees,
flowers, birds, mountains, and the valley round us.
All at once, far away in the distance, broke a long
cry, as of many voices, a pow-wow-wow — it might
almost be hounds running ; but a quarter of an hour
later, as it came nearer, the tom-toms dispelled that
illusion. No ; it was our hundred and fifty coolies,
who had begun the honk and were beating in our direc-
tion. All was at attention in a moment.

I slid out of sight behind a big deodar trunk ; S.,
taking up his 5oo-Express, knelt down with Lalla,
where some long grass concealed most of them ; and
there was an intense, strained silence. The distant
shouts were gradually coming nearer, and after some
time had elapsed, resolved themselves into noisy cries,
now louder, now fainter ; the tom-toms thumped as
with one voice and echoed again ; the rattle of sticks
became distinguishable.

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 211

Lalla was by this time wrought up into the highest
pitch of excitement ; indeed, it was quite impossible
to be an inert spectator, and I prayed that something,
at least, might appear. But no ; the " watched pot "
never boiled ! On came the war-cries, nearer and
nearer ; still there was nothing.

At last the straggling line of coolies began to appear ;
alas ! there was no harfdt in that beat. It was
peculiarly irritating, and exactly like natives, that the
nearer they got to us, and even when they were
within a few yards, the louder they yelled and shouted ;
we were obliged to pelt them with a pebble or two
to induce them to cease their maddening noise.

One thing was clear at least, that they beat ex-
tremely badly, ten or twelve of them going together
in a clump, and never properly beating out a nullah
at all. The headman was harangued and rated on this
point ; and then we walked off to have another honk.

Again we found ourselves on high ground, and after
half an hour's wait the beaters began. We were
hidden, waiting in perfect silence for twenty minutes,
perhaps, listening to the tom-toms and the shouts rising
and falling, when all in a moment they changed into
a piercing clamour, and a yell arose from a hundred
and fifty throats. " Hdrpat / harpdt ! " we could
almost distinguish.

Lalla and the chota shikari could hardly contain
themselves. We waited five minutes, perhaps, and
then, straight in front of us, bundling up the slope,
came a great shaggy red bear, not a black one ; he

212 A Sportswoman in India

was making right in our direction, when he altered
his course and turned left-handed. Lalla and S. ran
along to intercept him when he crossed open ground ;
but the harpat was extraordinarily quick : he dodged
behind a tree or two, passed some rocks, and never
gave a chance of a fair shot. Finally, he slipped across
the open space ; S. fired twice, and both bullets whistled
harmlessly by him, as he went out of sight in the
depths of the forest on the other side.

It was altogether a very bad piece of luck.

Honk number three was not more fortunate. We
got on our tats again and rode as far as possible, until
we had to ascend a long ravine. It was sunless, and
after the now burning hillside, almost like going into
an ice cavern. The sun, directly it had risen, became
scorching, for we were comparatively low down ; black
bear, as I said, like warmth. It was a toil, walking
and climbing into the positions for honking.

Now in this deep, cold nullah the sun's rays could
not be felt. Deodars, spruces, and pines almost met
from either side across it, and hid every glimpse of
sky. Little birches and stunted bushes grew thick,
moss carpeted the ground, clumps of maidenhair fern
flourished in green profusion, a small stream trickled
among the wet, lichen-covered rocks, dew still hung
on everything ; it was gloriously cool. Having come
out at the top at last, we made for a little wood,
bordering on Indian corn fields. A Kashmiri had
brought khubr to the effect that a bear had been
seen going into the plantation at daybreak.

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 213

We proceeded with the greatest caution, and con-
cealed ourselves at one corner of the wood, a little
distance from it, the beaters all walking off to the
other end. As we sat down in the long grass, we
could hear a sound inside the wood, rustling and
scratching, and suddenly a stout mulberry-tree top
began to shake to and fro, and vibrate with the weight
evidently of some heavy animal up in its branches.
A harpat \

It was the most tantalising thing in the world to
sit there and to see this going on. We could only
hope the beaters would drive him out our way. It
would have been useless to have run across the open,
for the bear was probably clambering down then, and
would soon have been out of sight in the tangle of
forest ; whereas if he broke in our direction, there was
a chance of getting a good shot.

The beating began ; and when the natives, as far
as we could judge by the noise, had got about half-way
through the wood, frantic shouts and beatings as
though the tom-toms were possessed proclaimed that
the harpat had broken back. However, he did not
seem to have gone through the line, and judging from
the sound, he was being seen from time to time, and
was coming in our direction. We were all hope.

And then a large black form crashed out of the
farther corner of the wood away from us, and set
off lumbering across the fallow. It was a very long
shot. S. steadied his rifle all he could, but sheer
excitement made things more against him. Bang !

214 A Sportswoman in India

and we, straining our eyes, saw the ground kick
up just over the bear's back. Bang ! again, and the
brown earth scattered just behind him this time. Still
he ambled along, getting farther and farther out of
shot ; and two more bullets were as useless as the
first. S. sat down, bewailing his luck.

We both had a drink of cold tea. It was poor
comfort that even a miss is better than no shot at
all ; but at any rate, one sees and feels, which is a
step out of the dead level.

With hope still in our breasts, we went off in a
different direction for the fourth honk. Another good
tramp, hotter this time, another long wait, until the
coolies gave tongue, and an interval of deep excitement
resolved itself into doubt ; doubt turned to disappoint-
ment ; disappointment read Blank.

By this time we were beginning to feel that we
had had a good deal of exercise ; and the beaters
apparently thought the same, for without question or
word of any sort, they lay down, Lalla with them,
and went to sleep under the trees ; some sat murmuring
together. We had more cold tea, and stretched our-
selves on our backs on the fir-pins looking up into
the thick branches. An hour in the middle of the
day having passed, we set to work again.

It would be tedious to describe the four honks that
afternoon. Each one only resulted in a blank. Once,
as we climbed a hill, we suddenly came on a pair of
pine-martens up in a tree, but for fear of disturbing
the place S. would not shoot.

Fourteen Thousand Feet High 215

They were soon out of sight, but we had time to
see them well. They were agile, graceful little animals,
and climbed like monkeys ; they would measure, as
far as one could guess, from head to tail thirty inches.
Their fur was rich brown, varying to a yellow breast-
spot and reddish grey underneath. Their skins would
have been handsome. Though called " pine-martens,"
they do not appear to have any special preference for
coniferous trees, except that, inasmuch as pine-trees
constitute the greater proportion of the forests of the
countries which martens inhabit, they are oftener met
with in them than in any other trees.

The pine-marten, the Asiatic sable, and the
American sable are all three species so much alike
that it is difficult to distinguish between them. They
live in woods and rocky places, and spend most of
their time in trees, coming down in quest of prey,
which consists, as a rule, of birds, birds' eggs, squirrels,
hares, rabbits, moles, mice, snakes, lizards, and frogs ;
but they are said also to eat berries and other fruits.
They belong, of course, to the sable, polecat, and
weasel family, but pine-martens have no unpleasant
odour. They occurred, once upon a time, in the British
Isles, the latest specimens being killed in Lincolnshire
in the present century.

Our eighth honk finished, still with the same spell
of bad luck hanging over us, we walked back into
camp. It was six o'clock, and since breakfast at five
o'clock in the morning we had been going on a bottle
of cold tea. Dinner was therefore more than ordinarily

2i 6 A Sportswoman in India

acceptable. But S. paid the coolies first, which was
always a trying business.

Once more the noisy circle was arranged. We stood
over them with sticks ; each man produced his ticket,
and as this had been a long day, received four annas in
return ; we seldom gave them more than two, but their
pay was doubled for every bear. At last the hundred
and fifty were got rid of, the camp was once more a
scene of quiet and order, and we sat down to eat in
peace.

I must reserve for the next chapter a beat which was
full — too full — of incident.

CHAPTER VII

BLACK BEARS

Two Bears in one Beat— a Coolie Mauled— After
Bdrd Singh— Road to Gilgit— Tragbal Pass—
Gurais — Gaggai Nullah — Snowed up — Quit the
Passes— Nanga Parbat— Snow-line Left Behind.

CHAPTER VII

BLACK BEARS

But you've no remorseful qualms or pangs

When you kneel by the grizzly's lair :
On that conical bullet your sole chance hangs,

Tis the weak one's advantage fair,
And the shaggy giant's terrific fangs

Are ready to crush and tear;
Should you miss, one vision of home and friends,

Five words of unfinished prayer,
Three savage knife stabs; so your sport ends
In the worrying grapple that chokes and rends : —

Rare sport, at least, for the bear.

LINDSEY GORDON.

THE next day was spent in marching to Key poor,
still down in the Valley of the Pohru ; and
we had a restful afternoon wandering about its banks.
Our tents were again put up in a grassy orchard ;
and towards evening a whole troop of monkeys
came out of the forest, walked across the shallow
river, picking their way over the stones, and invaded
our orchard. They swarmed up the apple- and mul-
berry-trees not far from us, shaking the boughs
and tumbling down fruit into the arms of the leery
old ones waiting underneath.

Khubr was brought us that evening, and very

219

220 A Sportswoman in India

encouraging khubr too. Lalla had secured plenty
of coolies for the next morning, and we went early
to roost with renewed hope.

Damp and chilly dawn saw the faithful band
leaving their camp shrouded in white river mist,
picking their way across pastures and through a
field of Indian corn dripping with dew, and thence
disappearing into the jungle. Lalla and S. were
walking first, myself on the tat came third, and
the chota shikari brought up the rear. The coolies
had been divided into three bands, and sent on some
miles from where we were eventually to take our
stand.

The dim light of the morning as yet barely
penetrated the gloom of the jungle ; deodars towered
over our heads, and on either hand formed masses
of impenetrable depths, suggestive of containing
much of the unknown. Silently we trod, avoiding
stepping on a branch or anything which might betray
our presence.

I soon had to leave the tat behind, tied up to
a tree, where I hope he enjoyed himself more than
I should have done under similar circumstances. To
be left behind alone was one of the last things one
wished, and I crept and climbed and scrambled
assiduously, keeping my breath for the time when
it would be wanted, and often gratefully accepting
a tow from the chota shikari with his stick.

It was very hot as well as very silent work. We
were following a small stream, and coming to a

BLACK BEAR.

Black Bears 221

deepish pool in one place, Lalla, after peering over
the wet soil round it, whispered in an awed and
triumphant voice, with many gesticulations, " Harpafs
bath " — pointing to the large, unmistakable track
ending in a sharp claw-mark ; there were even
splashes all over the rocks and drops on the ground,
showing where the bear had shaken himself. So
there in that dark hollow, among the thick jungle
grass and in the little, clear tank, a bear must
actually have been within the last half-hour. This
was distinctly encouraging ; after all we had gone
through, " fought for, and wrought for," a tangible
prize really lay somewhere at the end of the struggle.

More silently than ever we crept on, the two shikaris
moving with the greatest care and very slowly, " track-
ing " on either side of the path for more traces of
the hdrp&t. Every sign pointed to his being still ahead
of us. We walked and climbed in this way for some
time, until the jungle began to open a little and show
a clearer space, where one could at least see to shoot
between the tree trunks, the undergrowth having
disappeared. By gesticulations Lalla showed us we
were to stop ; and he and the c hota shikari then pro-
ceeded to break off and bend back any twigs which
they seemed to consider it was possible might come
in the way across the line of fire.

Here, then, we were to take up our stand ; and here
was to be — success or failure. The inevitable cold
tea bottle was brought up to the fore, and we both
had a drink. It sounds uninviting, but anything is

222 A Sportswoman in India

better than stimulants in a hot climate ; and after
all, it was just as well on these occasions to be cool
and clear-headed. And so we stuck to cold tea.

The shikaris chose a bank sparsely covered with
deodars to stand on, to the left of us a small nullah,
in front of us the jungle sloped gradually away into
the distance.

The beaters, as I said, had been sent on some miles
ahead — in fact, to the extreme limit of this patch of
jungle. One party was to start from there in line,
beating towards us ; the second contingent was to act
as stops, standing at intervals, on one side lining the
country between ourselves and the beginning of the
beat, in order to try to turn any bear which should
try to break sideways, instead of coming straight on ;
the third party was distributed as stops opposite the
second party.

We had a long wait — long enough to cool the
most "jumpy " nerves when once they had grown
accustomed to that unbroken silence, which is apt to
become almost painful.

The slightest rustle ! one sees visions and dreams
dreams ! Once a great red fox stole by, with a brush
almost as big as himself. And a picture he was ! In
the mind of the fox-hunting sahib rose recollections of
a marshy ride, of a whip at the corner of the cover
waving his cap, of the long, mournful, and withal
heart-stirring cry, " For-r-ad — aw-aaay." We saw a
pig with a pair of curling tushes ; and then after that
again dead silence.

Black Bears 223

At last, far away, the well-known vibration of tom-
toms, the yells of the natives ; the beaters are coming,
the beat has begun. Now is the time to harden the
heart against disappointment, or to be ready to face
any emergency. Two of the big deodar trunks hid
us all four completely. Alert, straining every nerve
to see and to hear, curbing every wish to move and
rustle, to breathe almost, we crouched, kneeling,
waiting.

The tom-toms and cries gradually got nearer and
nearer, louder and louder ; it seemed a long time — too
long — to be in such a state of tension. I was just
beginning sadly to think that this honk had nothing
in it either, when unexpectedly came, as it always
comes, the supreme moment, and the present was
alive with reality. Lalla's sinewy back in front of
me was stiffened with excitement ; I caught -the gleam
of his eye as he turned, and the chota shikari hissed
<c Hdrpat " into my ear.

We were all ready to move in a second, and there,
coming quickly towards us, was a great black form,
which now emerged into the open, now disappeared
behind a tree. The bear suddenly turned off to the
left, and was passing our stand without seeing us, when
at that moment the chota shikari moved and cracked
a stick under his foot. The bear turned and growled
savagely ; but a shot rang out almost simultaneously,
and a thick smoke hid what followed. Hit or not,
the bear had gone on.

We rushed after him. Whatever happened, I knew

224 A Sportswoman in India

that I must keep up with the rifle, and I did my best,
hauled along by the chota shikari. But through such
tangled jungle it was no joke moving fast, and a
difficult matter to get through some places at all.
Left behind once or twice, at last, to my joy, we caught
Lalla and S. up, hurrying down into a nullah. In the
gloomy shadows it was difficult to see far ; there seemed
no traces whatever of the bear.

By this time the shouting and the tom-toms sounded
quite close, the sticks rattled, the beaters could be
heard pushing through the bushes. Suddenly, above
the yells of the coolies, rang out another cry — a shriek
of alarm — which was instantly taken up on all sides ;
the jungle echoed with shout after shout.

We turned round and saw at once, on the other
side of the nullah, another and much larger bear
coming along the top. He turned off sideways ; and
we saw, to our horror, that one of the " stops " was
right in his path. He was unfortunately an old man
too, and could not spring quickly aside. Lalla was
an idiot to have allowed him to beat.

What followed was the work of an instant. To
shoot would have been even chances on killing the
bear or the native. With furious growls the bear
sprang towards the half-naked coolie, and springing
up at once erect on his hind-feet, he hit the man
on the top of the skull a buffet with one great
forepaw, with the other he struck the man's up-
raised arm, and at the same time bit him in the
chest. With agonising shrieks the poor native was

HIS GALLANT CHARGE WAS ENDED BY A BULLET BEHIND HIS EAR.

[Page 224.

\
Black Bears 225

thrown upon the ground ; the bear left him, and as
he moved away from him S. fired. It was a long
and, I suppose, difficult shot. . . . Gracious heavens —
he has missed him !

The bear turned in an instant, saw us, and rushed
down the nullah straight at us. It was a moment to
turn one a little pale. This " glorious hour of crowded
life " seemed likely to be overcrowded. Lalla and the
chota shikari shouted and yelled for all they were
worth, in the last extremity of terror, but no cries
would deter this hdrpdt from his purpose — he must be
on us in a moment.

I remember thinking of getting hold of the spare
gun, but saw with the corner of my eye that the
chota shikari was " shinning " up the nearest tree, and
the eight-bore lay at the bottom. I stuck to S., which
was the only thing to do, and hoped for the best.

On the old bear came, in far less time than it takes
to read this, growling with rage ; S., with his last
barrel, waited to make it a dead certainty ; but the
hdrpdt was most appallingly close, not farther than
four yards at the longest estimation, when his gallant
charge was ended by a bullet behind his ear. His
body rolled over and over to the bottom of the nullah.
It was certainly with a sense of relief that we looked
at each other, for a bear who will charge in this way
is not usual, and we were unprepared for quite such
an emergency.

We ran across to the poor native, who was soon sur-
rounded by a sobbing throng ; his scalp was lacerated,

15

226 A Sportswoman in India

his wrist broken, and his chest mauled. A
native doctor was either fetched or appeared from
somewhere. We asked him what he would do. He
replied, " Give him medicine." We asked, " What
medicine ? " " Oh ! he would buy something down
in the village bazaar," he said. Any one who has
ever walked through a filthy little native bazaar
will understand why we took the patient out of the
doctor's hands, got him into a dhoolie, and sent him
off to Soper hospital, two days' journey, under the care
of Sala Bux and relays of coolies.

Lalla said to S., "We'll carry him to the camp,
and when we get there, we must get some pins, and
pin his head up." So much for the primitive Kashmiri
surgery ! It turned out that the man's skull was
slightly fractured ; but he recovered, and left the
hospital in six weeks' time. S. went to visit him
there, after a letter from the surgeon-in-charge, in
odd English, in which he said, " If you will come
and visit him here, his sickness will be half."

Meanwhile the great black bear, an old male,
measuring six feet three inches, with worn-down teeth,
and a rusty coat, was worth examining. He had the
usual white crescent-shaped mark on the chest, and
a white lower lip. His head was particularly short
and round, but very broad and massive, with its cruel,
piggy little eyes. His claws were unusually long and
sharp, better adapted for climbing than for digging.
He must have stood up to the beater seven feet in
height quite.

Black Bears 227

It still remained to have a last look for Bear No. i.
Searching carefully, blood was seen on the ground ;
and, tracking his marks warily, we at last came on
him, stone dead, in the open, shot through the side.
He was a smaller bear, with a better coat, a deep, glossy
black.

I left S. still arranging about the poor native, and
with a coolie as a guide I went back and found
my tat and rode to the camp. Later on a tremendous
noise resounded up the valley, and by-and-by into
our orchard wound a triumphal procession, headed
by tom-toms thumping wildly and natives dancing
and capering, while around the two bodies of the
bears, borne upon poles, a shouting throng jumped
and cheered.

The paying of the beaters followed. At last they
all cleared off, alternating between weeping like children
over the recollection of the accident, and screaming
and dancing with joy over the successful issue of the
honk.

We sat down to a soothing meal, while Lalla and
Co. skinned the two hdrfdts ; after which the skins
were carefully stretched and secured by numerous pegs
along their margins, powdered alum was thickly
sprinkled on and thoroughly rubbed in, and some
parts were well anointed with arsenical soap. The
next day, rolling the skins up with the hair inwards,
we sent them straight off on the back of a coolie to
Srinagar to be roughly cured by our skin-man, before
despatching them home to Rowland Ward. On

228 A Sportswoman in India

skinning the big bear they found he was literally
stuffed with mulberries.

As an example of what natives are, after having
skinned the bears they never troubled to bury the
bodies, but left them both in the sun, and in
the wind's quarter. Though late in the afternoon, the
smell which blew into the camp was quite unbearable ;
however, the servants were unconscious of it, and
would, I am sure, have lived next the carcases cheer-
fully for the rest of the autumn.

Having had such luck with bears, we thought that
we could not do better than march away farther afield
and higher up, and try for a bara singh (twelve horns),
by which name the Kashmir deer is generally known
among shikaris. He is almost identical with the red
deer in Scotland ; but he is, alas ! gradually being
banished from many hills where he once abounded
by the vastly increased herds of cattle, especially
buffaloes. Not only so, but the deer are massacred
almost wholesale by the natives, with dogs, in the
snow in winter. Gurais was once a favourite locality,
and in this direction we turned our faces.

From Keypoor we marched by degrees to
Imbresilwara, where we were in camp all among fir-
trees. From there we marched to Alsoa, along a
ridge, with a magnificent view of the Lolab Valley
stretched out below us on our left. We saw Nagmerg
in the distance ; and then descending from this high
ground, we came down — down — -to Alsoa, almost on
the borders of the Wular Lake.

Black Bears 229

Lalla selected a spot under some willows for us to
camp ; I should call it a mosquito-stricken swamp.
We moved a little way off; but there was no escape —
we were bitten all the evening and all night. Even
mosquito-curtains were useless; their great time was
while one was sitting in a bath. Next day we had
torrents of rain, which partly accounted for the
mosquitos being so unusually troublesome.

I sat in my tent as long as I could stand it, and was
then driven out into the deluge, and we beat through
dripping jungle and steaming nullahs ; but no signs of
any kind of game were to be seen. We were up early
on these mornings, being generally called at 3.45 a.m.,
almost before the owls had left off hooting, or the
tree-beetles finished their nightly droning ; breakfast
was served by candle-light and a lantern, on our camp-
table, out in the open, under the stars.

Arrived at Bandipore, we posted our letters. And
now the road to Gilgit lay in front of us, winding
up into the mountains, a road we meant to follow as
far as Gurais. This excellent Government highway has
been made by the British, a feat of engineering, to
replace the old path ; we are told that before it was
made, " dark were the gorges and perilous were the
roads. Sometimes the traveller had to pass by light
cords, sometimes by loose stretched and plaited twigs.
There were ledges hanging in mid-air, there were
flying bridges and leaps to be made across abysses,
elsewhere paths cut with the chisel, or a rude footing
for the toe, in the face of the rock."

230 A Sportswoman in India

Nowadays two mules might walk abreast along
many parts of the way. A Political Officer lives as
British Resident at Gilgit all the year round, snowed
up throughout the winter months, the many miles of
telegraph wires alone forming a communication with
the outer world. The Dards occupy the Gilgit basin —
a cheerful, bold, independent people, caring little for
human life, but not bloodthirsty. Men and women
dress entirely in woollen — trousers and choga (a long
robe). Their caps are characteristic, being merely long
woollen bags, rolled up at the edge till they fit close to
the head. The feet are wrapped in leather, with long
strips as binders. They abhor the cow, and will not
drink its milk nor eat its butter nor burn cow-dung.
Polo is a favourite game throughout Dardistan, as in
Balti, which is its home, or one of its homes. Wher-
ever Baltis or Dards live, the polo-ground may be
looked for.

It was, then, the road to Gilgit along which we
were now marching. The post office, telegraph office,
and Government warehouses were all left behind at
Bandipore, together with most of the signs of civilisa-
tion ; the Happy Valley lay farther and farther below,
as we zigzagged up the abrupt ascent to the Tragbal
Pass ; and henceforth we met with no one, except an
occasional string of mules with transport on its way
to Gilgit, or a few Dards driving along baggage-ponies.
In nine miles we had ascended four thousand feet ;
a few miles farther, and we reached the rest bungalow
on the top of the Tragbal.

Black Bears 231

After the rank, green vales we had been wandering
through, where in the narrow paths Indian corn met
over our heads in its luxuriance, and where the sun
streamed down on us from morning till night, this
country was a great contrast. We were up in
clouds, in rainy, white mist.

However, it was a great luxury to be within four
walls under a roof for one night ; the little rest-
house might be draughty and have no glass in the
window, but the fireplace was soon glowing with
a pile of burning logs, and we spent a most snug
evening.

Higher up a good deal of fresh snow had fallen,
and the next morning Haramuk, that somewhat toad-
shaped mountain, looked almost unearthly in its new
snowfall, gleaming in the sunrise, glistening with
glaciers, grey and ghostly chasms breaking the snow-
fields and winding upwards, " gulfs foreshadowed and
straits forbidden."

At Kanjalwan one morning S. was called at 3 a.m.,
and after he had had breakfast, I heard Lalla being
soundly admonished, for he had come up afterwards and
quietly said that five o'clock would be time enough
to start. Eventually they went off" right up the
mountain-side. I stayed below and spent the day
sketching down by the Kishenganga River. Then in
the evening, after some tea, to keep warm, I collected
a grand supply of sticks and wood from the jungle,
which made a capital fire outside our tent, by which
we dined when S. came in. He had seen the tracks

232 A Sportswoman in India

of a small Mr a singh, but nothing else. He had been
up between fifteen and sixteen thousand feet, where I
should have found the climbing hard and the elevation
trying.

Several more days brought us to Gurais, a village
of flat-roofed houses down by the river in the middle
of the valley, mountains on either side, and the Gilgit
road vanishing away at the end, shortly to cross the
Burzil Pass. Gurais boasts of a post office, a fort,
and a house belonging to the road engineer. The
log huts which constitute the village were built of
pine-tree trunks laid lengthways one on top of the
other, and dovetailing at the corners ; no plaster of
any sort being used, one could easily see into them.
There were no chimneys, and in most of the huts no
windows. The door was merely a square space sawn
in the logs ; glass, chairs, beds, tables, are unknown
to these Kashmiris. I saw a cow and a calf lying
down inside the " room " with a woman and two
children. Hens and cocks lived inside, of course. The
families themselves were clothed in a long woollen
garment each, of a dingy yellow mud-colour ; dirty
is too mild a word for their faces and bodies ; the
children went about naked.

The few little fields round the villages can be
cultivated with little trouble, the soil is so rich. The
climate in the sheltered valleys is never extreme,
consequently without effort this lazy, filthy population
lives on from generation to generation in their wooden
pigsties, built all huddled together, anyhow, surrounded

; ••

• g

<

Black Bears 233

by gutters and dung-heaps, with the produce of their
fields often stacked up on the tops of the flat roofs.

From Gurais we marched down the valley of the
Kishenganga River, and I think our marches were
almost the most beautiful of any in Kashmir. The
autumn colouring every day grew more magnificent —
such crimsons and yellows in the forests ; while we
followed the course of the river, itself the deepest
green-blue. Picture, if you can, the boulders and the
white foam, the clear, deep pools ; on either side trees
turning golden and red ; above, the rocky cliffs of
the gorge ; then the deodar forests and jungles, which
at last leave the bare mountain-sides, whose lonely
heights culminate in waste after waste of snow.

Finally we encamped in Chota Gaggai Nullah. We
were on the banks of a stream, in the wildest scenery.
Any chance of bar a singh lay in getting up to about
sixteen thousand feet, where it would be utterly impos-
sible for ponies or, indeed, laden coolies to get along
at all, the path, or what was called " path," being
difficult enough for a man to climb without a load.

I was therefore left below for two nights in our
camp, while S. took up a tent just long enough and
broad enough to lie down in, and which exactly covered
the valise bed on which he slept upon the ground.
Sala Bux went up with him too, as well as Lalla and
the chota shikari ; they took provisions with them.

The " beastie "(bhisti), as the water-carrier is called,
was told off to wait upon me ; but conversation on
these days was very limited. I was called " Huzoor "

234 A Sportswoman in India

or else " Gurrapore," which means Protector of the
Poor.

I was out sketching one day by the Kishenganga,
when suddenly a voice said " Good morning," and a
sahib jumped down into the bed of the river where
I sat on a stone. He explained that he had been
camping up Burra Gaggai Nullah, and had heard of
us. He was in The Guides, and we found many
subjects in common, as well as shikar. He had only
seen one bar a singh, and after two hours' stalk found
it was too small to shoot. Six years ago Gaggai was
a sportsman's paradise, but it has been shot out. This
good Samaritan left a batch of old papers, which were
very welcome.

The afternoon turned to heavy rain, and I was
obliged to sit in my little tent ; the evening hours were,
however, greatly cheered by the arrival of Armudneera,
dripping from head to foot, with a fine bundle of
newspapers, letters, etc., from Bandipore. It had been
growing colder than ever all day, and I had put on
everything I possessed. Kashmir red wine with hot
water made a warming drink, and some cherry brandy
was a luxury. The beastie cleared away my evening
meal, scudding backwards and forwards through the
drenching rain ; both he and Cooky came up once or
twice to the tent door, saying, " Burruff! Huzoor —
bur ruff ! " I had not the faintest idea what burruff
meant ; but thanking Heaven that the tent did not
leak, so far, wrapping myself up from head to foot to
keep out the piercing cold, I went to bed. In the

Black Bears 235

night a strange, crunching, rumbling sound above us
and around us woke me, and continued to go on
till I was again asleep.

About five o'clock I awoke, bitterly cold, to find
the top of the tent bulging down and pressing on to
my bed. I tried to push it upwards, but it was very
heavy and I could not stir it, and very cold. Gradu-
ally the truth dawned upon me — snow. Jumping up
and peering through the flap, I beheld a world of white
and the air thick with great flakes falling fast. This,
then, was burruff.

Bed being the best place, I stayed there till late ;
the servants from time to time scraped the snow off
the tents. I looked out now and again — the earth was
flat with snow, and throughout that day it snowed
harder than it had ever snowed before, if one might
guess at it ; the leaden depths of the sky descended
like a mine turned upside down on us.

In the middle of the day S. appeared, drenched
to the skin. The path up had been bad, and over
some ground it was all he could do to get on at all.
It crossed the stream in many places, where they
waded up to their knees ; and for some distance, when
there was no room in the rock for a track at all, they
waded along up the bed of the stream.

The first day they heard a bdrd singh towards
evening. The second day, late in the afternoon, they
saw what were probably three red bears on a hill
about two miles off, but even with glasses could not
be quite certain ; they climbed for three-quarters of

236 A Sportswoman in India

an hour to get a nearer look, but the three objects
moved on. The next day was very wet. S. shot a
brace of ram chakor, a sort of large pheasant, grey
with red legs — handsome birds and very good to eat.
Early in the afternoon the snowstorm came on. It
was freezingly cold ; after waiting up the mountain
for it to get better — which it did not — they returned
to the little tent soaked to the skin. Sala Bux had
prepared something hot ; the little tent was fairly water-
proof; and S. lay down, while the servants huddled
round a tree, against which they piled and platted some
fir-tree branches as a shelter. All the air was thick
with snow. In the middle of the night water and
snow came in under the edge of the tent, and S.
awoke wet through. He got his two gun-cases, laid
them side by side, and slept on them as well as he
could for the rest of the night.

In the morning there was a foot of snow everywhere,
and it was snowing hard. They all set off to come
down to me ; the actual distance was six miles. Sala
Bux and the coolies, with baggage, were seven hours
over it. Wading through the snowy torrent must
have been cold work.

The remainder of that day S. and I sat in my tent,
shivering with cold. Towards evening Lalla came in
to say that it was more than probable that our
tent-poles would break in the night from the weight
of snow. It was an uncomfortable picture in such
weather ! I packed, and I slept in all my clothes,
even to my boots ; for, of course, if the bamboos had

Black Bears 237

snapped, everything would have been buried in snow
and under fallen canvas ; but with clothes on I could
not hurt, after I had been duly extricated from the
ruins.

All through that day, and all night long, avalanches
were falling continually up in the mountains and round
us with a crunching, roaring sound like thunder.
After all, the tents did not come down, and we awoke
to a beautiful sunny morning, the sky having resumed
its delicious blue and the valley its unrivalled beauty.
Everything was buried under a glittering shroud of
snow. The babble of the stream was bound by fetters
of ice. No branches creaked in the still air, no
birds sang, no one passed us. There, in unspeakable
solitude, lay our little camp.

Rejoicing in the sun, we spent the morning in drying
our things and generally straightening up ; while Lalla
went off to try and arrange for coolies to carry our
transport. Snow having once set in, the sooner we
moved down the better. I shall never forget that
day — everything wreathed and buried in white (for
there were two feet on the level), the strange, fantastic
shapes, the dazzling icicles, the deodar branches
weighed down under white feather-beds, the great
rolling, curling snow-drifts ; it was the whitest world
I have ever seen.

Near my tent the servants scraped a circle in the
snow, and, as well as they could with the damp
wood, lit two little fires. They squatted round the
fires, with the two kilters, which contained all our

238 A Sportswoman in India

provisions and their pots and pans. It is dastur that
a Kashmiri cook should rise to the occasion ; and,
following " custom," ours cooked for us there in the
snow as he never had in the warm valleys. At lunch,
in my tent, appeared mutton chops, chip-potatoes, and
apple tart, all hot ; again for dinner, excellent soup,
mixed pie of pheasant, etc., poached eggs, and plum
pudding, all out of this circle in the snow ! Sala Bux
was ill all day with fever, after his night out with S.

We went for a walk in the afternoon, floundering
along so slowly that we barely got a mile ; but
in the rarefied, intoxicating air it was grand exercise,
and the limitless shroud of white over the whole
world, as it seemed, was a wonderful sight — light,
powdery, sparkling like diamonds. Down in the river,
in a little black pool broken among the ice and snow,
we came upon a brace of teal, which S. shot, and later
on a pair of pigeons, all a useful addition to our larder.
Our anxiety about getting down out of these regions
was set at rest that night by Lalla returning with a
band of coolies he had raised from the nearest village.

Towards evening it froze intensely, with the stars
as bright as jewels, the earth spread out in lustrous
twilight, and a profound solemnity, an unbroken still-
ness. The full moon rose over the top of the nullah
as a patin of pure silver, casting on the snow long
shadows of the great mountains and the pine-trees,
the burdened rock, the shaggy foreland. In the great
white desolation distance was a mocking vision ; hills
looked near and nullahs far, when hills were far and

Black Bears 239

nullahs near. And the misty breath of frost, piercing
through the deepest water, striking into the ground,
lay in our tents and froze stiff everything round us.
I took off none of my clothes, and lay wrapt in my
bedding, trying to keep warm.

Next morning, in bright, dazzling sunlight, the tents
were taken down and all our baggage loaded on
the coolies. We got them off with all possible speed.
Our little camp-table was left till last, and while
the tents were being packed, we sat at breakfast
out in the snow. It was strange how accustomed
one grew to it, being always in it. The table was
then folded and tied to the back of the last coolie,
and we set off.

It was hard work walking, and we were soon wet
to our knees. The pony, which we rode between
us, kept its feet and made its way through the
drifts ; but it was so bitterly cold sitting and riding
it, that we both chose rather to walk until from very
weariness we were forced to accept a lift for a time.
Food, on these marches, we ate as we walked ; it
was too cold to stop.

Crossing the Kishenganga River was a work of
difficulty. Once we got over by an immense pine-
tree trunk which had fallen across it and had been
lopped of all its branches. Even a plain tree trunk
is not the bridge one would select of all others ;
but covered with more than a foot of snow, it
was " blind " going, slippery and perilous. We
went over on our hands and knees, and the pony

240 A Sportswoman in India

forded the thick, muddy river. We had to ford
ourselves many small streams.

Another narrow, swinging, log bridge was bad
crossing. Of course, it had no handrail of any sort,
and the great gaps between the loose logs, added
to the swinging of the whole frail structure, makes
it a matter of wonder to me now that not only
our whole party, but the pony also, reached the
other side. Those hill tats possess marvellous instinct,
creeping over bridges in our footsteps like a cat,
apparently able to snuff holes and loose logs, moving
very slowly indeed, but without the slightest alarm.
October 8th saw us arrived at Gorai rest-house,
with only one more march before we should reach
once more the Tragbal dak bungalow.

After our time of camping in the snow, it is hard
to picture the absolute luxury which we felt in that
Gorai rest-house. True, it was only the roughest
dak bungalow, with a couple of bare rooms, bare
brick walls, bare boarded floor, bare fireplace, table,
and framework for beds. But it seemed Heaven.
A fire soon blazed ; and what it was to sit over it —
to dry our frozen and soaked boots and stockings,
etc. ! . . . What it was to have a dry floor to sit
upon, and rafters over our heads ! There was no
window, and the door had to be kept open to light
the room ; but when our transport turned up, we
got out a pair of candles and felt almost over-
burdened with comfort. Our faces and hands had
been badly chapped with cold, and blistered with

Black Bears 241

the light of the sun on the snow. Before we got
down into the Happy Valley once more, we lost
most of the skin. Neither vaseline nor glycerine was
of any use.

The number of small things which one wants out
in camp are most difficult to recollect and to provide
at short notice. Such things as sticking-plaster, wax
matches, quinine, chlorodyne, green goggles, scissors,
string, rope, needles, thread, arsenical soap, powdered
alum, penknives, cotton wool, dusters for servants,
toilet soap, stationery, a few favourite books, a
measuring tape, a portable, waterproof, folding bath,
a leather water-bag, lantern, candles and candlesticks
and wind-guards, a hatchet, butcher's knives and a
steel, a spring weighing-machine to weigh up to one
hundred pounds, common soap for washing clothes,
dubbin for greasing boots — this gives an idea. We
suffered greatly from the want of green gauze or
goggles all this time when we were marching across
snow.

With regard to head-dress, sold topis, or helmets
of some description, must be worn when down in the
valleys on the march, though in the higher mountains
a tweed cap out stalking is sufficient. But it all
depends on the sun, the day, etc. I wore a broad
helmet from first to last. Nothing is more suitable
for clothes than puttoo, a strong woollen homespun
made in Kashmir. It is soft, warm, durable, and
usually of exactly the right colour — a sort of brownish
grey.

16

242 A Sportswoman in India

Bad weather and the scarcity of dry fuel proved
the convenience and excellence of tins of soup and
preserved meat, also consolidated tea and coffee, tins
of cocoa and preserved milk. Compressed vegetables,
too, are among very useful stores, tins of carrots, of
ginger, syrup, etc. I would advise travellers against
taking Worcestershire and Harvey sauce, for when
once that bottle is opened, every course served up will
be deluged with its contents by the native cook.
Some bottles of whisky, cherry brandy, and even the
local red wine, add considerably to comfort.

The chokidar, the native who looked after the
rest-house and kept the key, lived in a room at one
end ; at the other end our servants had a room. The
wood fire smoked violently, but that was a small evil.
The moon was again so brilliant that we could plainly
see the great, distant snow mountains, and we could
have read or have written by its light with the greatest
ease.

The rats at night ran riot in our rooms. They
scuttled across the floor, squeaking loudly, and shuffling
among my clothes, which I had taken off. Then
there was a race, apparently from S.'s room to mine,
through a great hole in the wall. It may be said that
the rattle of their feet over the boarded floor was
deafening ! I lit my candle, and they were a little
less noisy, but in the corners of the room long dark
bodies were still rustling and moving, and for a time
kept me awake.

The next day we had the Tragbal Pass before

Black Bears 243

us. Everything was frozen hard as nails when
we got up, and the first five miles was an arduous,
slippery climb. However, we were now on the
Gilgit road, though at present it was a mere track
marked by the passage of a ddk coolie or two.
Higher we rose up over the pass, where a cutting
wind would have taken the skin off a rhinoceros.
The glare of the snow was most painful to the
eyes, and they grew blood-shot and sore. The
sun sparkled on the edges, glittered on the icicles,
shone on the heights, illumined the depths, till all
was one vast radiance, and our dazzled eyes ached
again.

The bleak mountains at the top, over which our
path lay, were more than ever desolate and solemn —
as far as the eye could see, and beyond that, as far
as the mind could think, stretched waste upon waste
of snow ! From the summit we turned to look
back at Nanga Parbat, and again and again we turned
before the slope on the other side brought us too
low down.

The third highest mountain in the world, 26,620
feet, we had seen it often and often during our stay
in Kashmir, whenever we were up at any considerable
elevation. In one's imagination Nanga Parbat grows
to be more than a mountain — it becomes invested
with a personality. Far above all other ranges any-
where near it, its splintered, snow-white crest rears
itself into the sky ; the first sunlight of early dawn,
the last of the sunset, belong to Nanga Parbat, and

244 A Sportswoman in India

long after the rest of the world is shrouded in the
greys of twilight, the lonely peak is stained in crimson
glory.

The whole mountain is haunted by pixies, and no
native shikari will venture into its nullahs. They
call the glacier, or the ice peak on its summit,
" Shal-batte-kot" and a shikari is said to have once
climbed up to it, and to have found therein countless
snakes. If any man doubts this, they add, let him
go there and bring down word, that all may know
the truth.

But those heights, which defied even Mummery and
which are now his grave, keep their secret. We could
see the great shoulder of the mountain, up which it
was his intention to work his way, and the gigantic
glacier down its south-west front ; but I suppose we
must have been fifty miles from it. I have seen the
sun glinting on its ice-fields at a distance of a hundred
miles in a bee-line.

No descriptions give any idea of its beauty. " In
a hundred ages of the good, I could not tell the
glories of Nanga Parbat. As the dew is dried up by
the morning sun, so are the sins of mankind by the
sight of Nanga Parbat."

For a long time we gazed. Uplifted above love
and hate and storms of passion, calm amidst the eternal
silences and unknown of man, bathed in living blue,
a great peace rested on the sad and lonely peak on
that bright day. I said " Good-bye." I have never
seen it again.

Black Bears 245

The descent from this point was considerable ; every
turn in the path brought us many tens of feet below
the last. It grew warmer. The next stage brought
us into a thaw ; and on the more southerly side the
Tragbal was running with water. We waded through
half-frozen snow and slush, and by-and-by through
seas of mud.

The ending of the snow-line was most curious in
its very abruptness. The green on the mountain-
sides, the grass, the tree tops, to our eyes dazzled
with the snow-glare and accustomed for days to
nothing but a sheet of radiant whiteness, had an
extraordinary appearance. Everything looked black,
and all wrong. And it was some time before our
vision became normal and we could appreciate the
greenness. And now the Happy Valley spread out
below us, with the calm Wular Lake, and every
step brought us down into greater warmth and
sunshine. It seemed as though spring ought to be
coming on !

At the Tragbal rest-house we ate some tiffin,
sitting in the verandah, and then made our way down
the zigzag road to Bandipore, where we camped by
a stream close to the Wular. It had been a long
march of twenty-five miles ; but coolies with our tents
had left Gorai at 4 that morning, and so we found
them on our arrival really pitched. The cook, how-
ever, and the rest of our baggage were hours behind
us, and we had a lengthy wait before getting anything
to eat.

246 A Sportswoman in India

And now our stay in Kashmir drew to a close.
Leave also was limited ; our associations with the
mountains were to become only a memory. A week
later we were in a doongha on the Jhelum, making
our way to Baramoula. I tried not to realise that
it was my last journey in the beautiful vale, my last
sight of Haramuk and the Pir Panjal range, never
again to live in quite the same way, face to face
with Nature.

As we paddled along, our last evening, the country
said its farewell in one of its most gorgeous sunsets.
The stately pines on the Tragbal stood out, one
beyond another, in a medium of deep, quiet violet,
while the grey, bleached summits, peaked and snow-
slashed, above them, gleamed with amber light.
Watching them, in their unearthly fascination, the
scene changed every moment. The river, through
whose oily surface we cut, long remained a sheet of
burnished gold ; the sky and the mountains, trans-
formed by the after-glow, passed through a carnival
of colour — indescribable.

At last the jewelled peaks became wan as the face
of death, and only a cold, golden light lingered in the
west. Night had come with its eerieness. Still in
our open kishty we paddled along, until about 1 1 p.m.
Baramoula drew near : there was the opening in the
mountains, there the grey, mysterious bridge and
shadowy houses. It was bitterly cold by this time.
Mooring, we walked up to the dak bungalow. All
was dark ; but on a bench near the door was huddled

Black Bears 247

up a tall lump of rags, like a dejected fowl roosting.
Doubtfully S. addressed it. "Chokidar?" It un-
wound, arose, and was. It lit us fires in two rooms,
and we slept like stones.

The next morning, going to the tonga office, we
booked all our effects to follow by bullock-cart to
Pindi station, nearly two hundred miles. Our own
luggage, strapped on the sides of a tonga^ we packed
in. Many and profound were the salaams from
Cooky, Lalla, Armudneera, Beastie, and Sweeper as
we drove off.

That day we drove eighty miles, and slept at Domel.
As a rule, people take three days to drive out of and
into Kashmir, but it is such a dull way of spending
time that we resolved to do it in two. It was
extremely tiring, owing to the jolting of the tonga.
We changed ponies every six miles. What always
struck me was that one tumbled out of the tonga
to stretch one's legs, only to find that, far from
walking, one's keen desire was to sit down at once
from sheer weariness.

We got up at six o'clock the next morning, and
drove for three hours before breakfast to Kohala ;
after which thirty miles entirely uphill brought
us to Murree ; and then a last forty miles took
us down to Pindi. Leaving Murree, the Illimitable
Plains lay idealised in the evening light, c< their
baked, brown expanse transfigured into the likeness
of a sunset sea rolling infinitely in waves of misty
gold."

248 A Sportswoman in India

Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound

Unto the farthest flood-brim look with me ;

Then reach on with thy thought till it be drowned.

Miles and miles distant though the last line be,

And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond, —

Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there are more plains.

And now our road began to grow dusty and also
much hotter. At each stage down we cast garment
after garment, and the air lost all its old exhilaration
and become more oppressive.

With a last bump and a last jolt the tonga pulled
up at Rawal Pindi station, and with the weariness of
a ninety-mile drive in a cart without springs upon us,
we walked into the busy station, crowded with the
familiar Indian native, and the first train we had seen
for six months.

Dinner in the refreshment-room, and we then
made ourselves comfortable in our reserved carriage
on a siding. I hardly remember when the mail train
picked us up ; but at ten o'clock next morning we
reached Lahore, and found the Orderly Gunga Sin and
a brougham there to meet us. It was too hot to
drive up to Mian Mir in an open carriage.

As we drove, the dismalness of a level land, after
Kashmir, came over one — the flat stretches of sand,
the dusty tamarisk-trees, the glaring white artillery
lines, the cavalry lines, passed one after the other.
We were down in the plains, down in cantonments
again. The sun scorched, the air was alive with the
sound of distant bugle calls ; in the evening we should

Black Bears 249

hear the band playing at the Bedford mess, and the
sleepy creak and groan of the water-wheel in the
garden all day — everlastingly.

Here at last was the bungalow and its quiet, dark
rooms. The spotless servants, and my own ayah in
white and a scarlet coat, and half a dozen ear-, nose-,
wrist-, ankle-, and toe-rings and bangles and chains
glittering about her, stood salaaming on the doorsteps,
welcoming us back to the civilised world.

It seems superfluous to enlarge upon a subject on
which competent authorities have written ; but before
I close this chapter I cannot resist adding a short note
to the many and forcible lines which have been penned
by other writers, of deep regret that Kashmir should
ever have been allowed to pass out of British hands.

In the earliest days Hindu kings reigned in
Kashmir. They were conquered and succeeded by
Mohammedan rulers. In 1588 the country fell into
the hands of the Moguls. The Afghans gained
possession of it in 1756. It was wrested from them
by Rangit Singh, the Sikh monarch of the Punjab,
in 1819. When the Sikhs in 1 846 were defeated by
the English, they were unable to pay the one and a
half millions sterling which we demanded, and, as
equivalent to part of it, they ceded to us a large
territory of hill country, which included Kashmir. But
our Governor-General, Sir Henry Hardinge, con-
sidered it expedient to make over Kashmir to the Jamu
chief, securing his friendship, while the British Govern-
ment was occupied in administering the Punjab.

250 A Sportswoman in India

Such is its history. This may have been a diplo-
matic move, an expedient one, in those turbulent days ;
and yet it would have been worth a great effort to
have kept Kashmir in our hands. As a sanatorium for
our troops it would have been invaluable, its climate
surpassing any of our hill stations, and besides which
there is room. Added to this the country, properly
cultivated, would be a great source of revenue, instead
of its fertile valleys being wasted on a degraded,
lazy, good-for-nothing people.

CHAPTER VIII
TIGER-SHOOTING

Down to the Deccan— A Tiger Shoot— The March—
Khubr — Into Position — A Tree-climbing Tiger —
A Merciful Escape— A Splendid " Great Cat **—
Heat and Famine — We walk a Tiger up for the
First and Last Time— Death of Beater— Return
to Civilisation.

251

CHAPTER VIII

TIGER-SHOOTING

TIGER!— TIGER!

What of the hunting, hunter bold ?

Brother, the watch was long and cold.
What of the quarry ye went to kill ?

Brother, he crops in the jungle still.
Where is the power that made your pride ?

Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.
Where is the haste that ye hurry by?

Brother, I go to my lair to die.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

IF one could look down upon India from a balloon^
one would see that it was more or less divided
into three regions. The first is the Himalayas, of
which we have seen something ; the second is the
plains, where the last chapter left us ; the third is
the Deccan, a great three-sided table-land which covers
the southern half of India. It slopes upwards from
the plains, and its northern wall and buttresses stood
in former times as a vast barrier of mountain and
jungle between Northern and Southern India, greatly
increasing the difficulty of welding the whole into one
empire, until at length pierced by road and rail. The
eastern and western sides of the Deccan are known
as the Ghats, a name applied to a flight of steps up

253

254 A Sportswoman in India

a river bank. In the Bombay Presidency the Ghats
rise in magnificent precipices and headlands almost
out of the ocean, and truly look like " colossal landing-
stairs " from the sea. The Eastern and Western Ghats
meet at an angle near Cape Comorin at the southern
extremity of India, and so complete the three sides of
the table-land.

I think the Deccan fulfils more than the Punjab
does the rooted conception of " the land of Ind,"
as fostered by pictures of the East from one's child-
hood, and as carried out with him from home by
every globe-trotter. The black soil of the Deccan,
proverbial for its fertility, grows every kind of fruit-
bearing palm, bears rich successions of crops and
heavy rice harvests — that is, unless the monsoons fail.
Vast masses of forests, ridges, and peaks constitute the
highlands of Southern India, broken by cultivated
valleys and high-lying plains. Parts of the Deccan are
covered with magnificent vegetation ; in old days it
was buried under forests ; and even now ebony, teak,
and other great trees still abound. But tillage has
driven the jungle back to the hilly recesses ; wheat,
millet, tobacco, cotton, sugar-cane, and pulse fields
spread over the country.

The people store the monsoon rains in wells, tanks,
and artificial lakes, and flood their crops at will. Their
food consists chiefly of small grains and millets ; and
if the rains fail, thousands die of famine. As from
the railway the traveller sees the flat stretch of rice
fields, fringed round with evergreen masses of bamboo

TigerxShooting 255

cocoa-nuts, areca, and other coroneted palms, each
hamlet hidden among its own grove of plantations
and wealth-giving trees, he feels this is in truth more
the India of his imagination, and if his travels take
him into the great jungles and up the rocky hills, he
will feel some distance from Europe.

Such, then, is the Deccan. And it is these highlands
of India which are specially connected in the mind
with tigers and tiger-shooting — a theme which, I
venture to hope, is not, from a woman's point of view,
yet worn threadbare.

The subject is not treated here scientifically, but
only as it struck a well-known Mem-sahib who has
taken part in almost every variation of sport in India.
It is simpler to use her own words, and I can vouch
for the truth of them, at the same time gently re-
minding the unbelieving critic that the wildest fiction
never yet eclipsed fact.

We left Bangalore one day in the middle of last
April, J. and myself, in answer to a wire from Captain
F. at Secunderabad, " Arrangements for shoot complete"
which meant getting leave from the forest authorities,
police authorities, and a thousand-and-one minor
details.

From Secunderabad a night journey got us to
Warungal station at two in the morning. We spent
the rest of the night uncomfortably in the waiting-
room, and as soon as it grew light were only too
glad to set off. I would impress upon every woman

256 A Sportswoman in India

following our example the necessity of taking every
precaution against the heat. Not only wear a large
sold topi, but have a spine pad sewn inside the coat,
which should be of thin green shikar material. I
had a second pad hooked on outside. I often kept
a wet rag on my head, inside my pith helmet ; and
I wore dogskin gloves, minus half the fingers,
which enabled one to hold the burning barrels. The
temperature was 104° in the shade in our tents, and
later on 115°.

Our caravan really formed a most imposing train
as we set off from Warungal station. Fifty-one pack-
bullocks with panniers carried one hundred and sixty
pounds each, which consisted of guns, ammunition,
tents, beds, chairs, table, clothes, food and drink enough
to last the three of us for eight weeks, corn for our
ponies and the ponies of our two head shikaris,
filters, cash-box, etc., etc. Our own luggage had gone
straight through from Bangalore to Warungal with
our boy. It was twenty-six maunds over weight — that
is, two thousand and eighty pounds ! It blocked up
the platform and alarmed the guard considerably.

Our whole party consisted of our three selves, our
own boy for each of us, a syce for every pony, a
cook, a mati (or scullery-boy), a peon for supplies,
letters, etc., ten shikaris, and four bullock-men to look
after the bullocks. So we formed quite a camp. When
on the march, we started off our fifty-one pack-bullocks
at three o'clock in the morning, following ourselves
at six o'clock, marching from fifteen to twenty miles

TigervShooting 257

a day. According to this plan, bullocks and all of
us reached the new camp much about the same time ;
the tents were all put up ; and we avoided being out
in the hottest time — from twelve to four o'clock.

Up to our third camp out of Warungal we did
nothing at all ; we were unlucky, for at all three places
we were, through some mistake, preceded by a party
of the 1 9th Hussars, who had left Secunderabad a
fortnight before. We sent on to them, and they
arranged to branch off to the left, so that our next
camp was on unbeaten ground.

It was hot on the march. I made my syce carry a
large kettle of cold tea or coffee wherewith to refresh
myself, and J. and Captain F. supplied themselves also
with something cold. The syces carried our guns, too,
after the first day, when we saw a lot of jungle-fowl
and a splendid peacock, which we would fain have
shot, for they are excellent eating ! Since then we
stalked several when we got into camp, but they were
too cunning.

Every day, as soon as the bullocks were unloaded,
they were driven down to water, and there they
wallowed, covering themselves with mud, and often
only showing just their noses above the mud and water.
Whenever the camp was in a likely place the shikaris
tied up bullocks for the tigers to kill the same evening,
and we went and saw what had happened the next
morning. For the first two or three marches, as I
said, we had no luck, and went on at once, instead of
staying in one camp a week or so, as we did later on.

17

258 A Sportswoman in India

Our marches were all through jungle, sometimes
really thick with fine trees, occasionally rough scrub
and steep, rocky hills. The track was always rough
and very stony, a mere path, and in many places would
have been quite impossible for the roughest bullock-
cart. We rode all of it at a walk, and the syces
followed on foot.

At last we had khubr (news) of a tigress and two
large cubs ; and, full of elation, having reached the
camp, six bullocks were tied up that same evening.

Next morning we started about half-past six and
went out to see what had happened. We rode, two
shikaris walking with us, till we were about half a mile
from the tie-up ; then, dismounting, we left the ponies
with the syces, and crept with infinite caution up to
the spot, for if the tiger has killed the bullock, he
generally only drags the body a few hundred yards,
and having hidden it, lies down somewhere within reach.
Of course, it seems cruel to the unfortunate bullock ;
but, as a matter of fact, if you kill the tiger in this way,
you save the lives of a number of other bullocks, for a
cattle-killing tiger devours an enormous number in a year,
and, in occasional cases, may take to killing men too.

Besides, how else is a tiger to be found at all ?
Roaming the country-side and hunting all night, they
cover an enormous range of ground, and in a wild,
rough scrub and jungle country, extending for
hundreds of miles, without any clue to the tiger's
sleeping-place during the day, one might beat perhaps
for weeks and weeks, and see nothing at all.

TIGER.

[Page 258.

TigeivShooting 259

Judged by the standard of the greatest good to the
greatest number, the laws of humanity justify the
working of a tiger shoot, to my mind.

Bullocks are tied up in the most likely places —
always near water. The tiger, delighting in thick cover
near streams, visiting the spot on his nightly beat, kills
the bullock, drags the body away a few hundred yards,
and hides it under a bush, or somewhere where the
vultures will not see it. He makes a large meal at
once, drinks at the stream, and then lies down for
twelve hours or so in cool shade somewhere near at
hand. If undisturbed he will sleep during the day,
and returning to the carcase at night, continue his
meal. One bullock will last him three or four
nights.

Therefore, upon visiting cautiously in the early
morning the tie-up, and finding that the bullock has
been killed and dragged off, the odds are greatly in
favour of the tiger's being somewhere close at hand.
He is, so to speak, located.

And now it is worth while having a beat. And
here a really good shikari is absolutely necessary — a
first-rate man, who knows all the ground, understands
exactly the right places to beat, and how to beat them,
and where to post his guns.

The extraordinary, intuitive knowledge which a
few shikaris possess, makes it almost a dead certainty
as to which path a tiger will come along in a beat,
and has made sportsmen complain that tiger-shooting
is a well-planned, preconceived, cut-and-dried battue.

260 A Sportswoman in India

And as for danger ! I have heard it compared with
shooting a mad dog from the top of an omnibus.
Read the rest of the chapter.

On the morning of which I speak we crept up to
the first bullock and found it still unharmed ; but we
could track plainly where one of the tiger cubs (they
were nearly full-grown) had walked up to it, and
right round it, but had not seen fit to kill. We sent
the reprieved bullock to water and back to camp, and
crept on about a mile and a half to the next.

It was gone ! We stole up to the stake. The
rope was broken off short, and in the dust, close to
the stake, was an enormous scratch-mark, with all the
marks of the nails imprinted sharply, exactly like a
gigantic cat at home might make. There was a broad
trail where the body had been dragged off.

As the tiger might be lying down close to the body,
it is better never to follow this up. No one who
values his life should walk up to a tiger. Every one
has heard how tigers which have been mortally
wounded have struck down men even in their dying
agonies, and almost every year some fatal accident
occurs to add to the warnings, but they are still un-
heeded. Other animals may be dodged and avoided ;
but if a tiger does charge home, death is nearly
inevitable.

Leaving two shikaris to arrange the general idea of
the beat, we went back to camp, four miles off. While
we had breakfast, and coolies were collected for the
beat, a concentrated excitement seemed in the very air.

Tiger'Shooting 261

It is best not to begin to beat till eleven or twelve
o'clock ; by that time the tiger is probably asleep, and
is less likely to be disturbed too soon. Even should
this happen, the sun and the rocks are by that time
so scorchingly hot, that he is very reluctant to leave
his cool sanctuary. From fifty to a hundred coolies
are wanted for a beat ; on this occasion we had
eighty. Their pay was one rupee to eight coolies —
that is barely twopence each ; but it was doubled if
a tiger was shot. As Furreed, the head shikari, re-
marked, " it takes very clever business " to arrange
skilfully a good beat.

We beat a long nullah (a valley) on that first day,
two miles long and half a mile wide. Most of the
coolies and shikaris were sent to one end, the guns
were posted at the other ; but besides this, stops had
to be placed all along the sides, at any point where
the tiger is likely to break out. The coolies who act
as stops all climb up into trees, and if they see the
tiger coming their way with the idea of breaking
out, they snap a twig or two, which invariably turns
him back at once.

Besides this, we had brought with us about ten rolls
of broad, white cloth stuff, each piece a yard wide and
twenty yards long, and called " stopping cloth." This
was fixed on to trees or bushes along the edge of the
beat, at places where the tiger was known by the
shikaris to be particularly likely to break out — all
this with the same idea of keeping him in the desired
direction of the guns, of course^

262 A Sportswoman in India

We three guns were posted in trees, seated each in a
machan, which is, as a rule, a stout, hard, stuffed leather
cushion, with straps and buckles, or else ropes, on the
four corners, by means of which it is fastened up in the
branches, about fifteen feet from the ground. The
machan is reached by a little, rough ladder ; and having
climbed up into your perch, your gun-bearer with your
second gun standing or sitting on some branch near
you, your chdgul (leather water-bottle) slung below,
you sit, still as death, perhaps for as long as two
hours, while the beat goes on.

No. i place was the likeliest and best, and No. 2
second best. We changed numbers every day ; and so
astute are the shikaris, that out of seven tigers six
came past No. i.

The first morning, much to our disappointment, the
tigress was never found at all. But, partly because it
was the first time and all so new, it was most exciting ;
in fact, the excitement was so intense that in my heart
of hearts I felt almost glad when it was all over. The
shikaris did not think the tigress had gone far.

The next morning we had another beat, and though
J. saw the tigress, he did not get a shot at her. She
came back in the night and ate more of the dead body,
and the shikaris said she was in some long, thick
elephant-grass beyond either of the two preceding
beats. We were up in machdns on one side, and by-
and-by could hear her move. They set alight to one
end. It did not burn very well ; but after a bit, the
fire and the yells of the coolies, and the blank cartridges

Tiger-Shooting 263

which they kept letting off, made her move at last.
She sprang up with a loud roar ; but instead of coming
out near any of the guns, as we hoped, she rushed off
down through the grass right-handed, and I only saw
her striped back for one second, only that and her tail,
about sixty yards off in the grass, not enough to fire.
She went right off. For more than ten miles the shikaris
tracked her, still travelling on, and then they gave it up.

Leaving this camp, we reached that day a place
called Tarwai, where we met with the first actual and
sad signs of the famine, which was prevalent. We
had passed across waste after waste, which should have
been rice, paddy, and other grain, but lay now all
uncultivated, owing to the non est of water.

In all the villages so far they had had rice left from
last year, sufficient for a miserable pittance for this
year ; but at Tarwai the wailing, walking skeletons
crawled up to us — heart-stirring spectacles ! They
clamoured for rice — with their shrunken little ones in
their arms — and of course we spared them all we could,
and gave them a little money to send and buy more.
But it was terribly little we could do for the starving,
hollow-eyed, weary supplicants, who, after we had
distributed the rice, clustered over the ground where
it had lain, like ants by spilled honey, searching for
another grain.

The heat throughout this time could not be pictured
at all by any one at home. It cannot be realised by
those who have not felt it, and it gives the ordinary
Britisher no adequate idea whatever to read that it

264 A Sportswoman in India

was 104° in the shade. When there was any wind
at all, it was generally a sort of burning, furnace-
like blast. Of course, we streamed with perspiration
all day and most of the night. The only cool
moments were for an hour just before dawn. Captain
F. and J. always slept outside, with nothing over
them but their pyjama suits. The rocks would
grow so hot in the sun that we could feel them
all burning to our feet through boots. However,
it was a healthy, dry heat, which was a blessing,
and none of us were the least ill.

At last, after several days of inaction, we met with
our first real excitement, and at the same time I
shot my first tiger. He was well known, for three
gunners who were in the same place last year had
three beats after him — ineffectual beats. He was fond
of killing bears — a very uncommon thing ; and the
villagers told us he had been seen to climb a tree
after a bear which scrambled up it to get out of his
clutches. He managed to reach the bear, and attacked
him. Both fell out of the tree on to the ground,
when the tiger promptly killed the bear.

This we did not at the time believe ; it is most rare
for a tiger to climb trees — in fact, almost unheard of.
But it proved to be true. He was what they call
a very bobbery (pugnacious) tiger, the first news
we heard of him being that he had killed and eaten
another bear six miles from our camp. We went out
and had a beat, and found the remains of poor Bruin ;
the tiger was in the beat, but he broke out through

Tiger ^Shooting 265

the stops on one side without being fired at. However,
the following night he killed one of our tie-ups, close
to camp, and he made off it his last meal in this
world.

The next morning found all three of us up in our
respective machdns. Captain F. and myself were about
eighty yards apart. The tree which he was in was not
quite upright ; it leaned slightly, and it had several
branches at intervals up the trunk, the machdn being
fastened upon one of them. I sat on my little seat
with feelings so intense and so mixed that they were
absolutely painful ; the strain and excitement great
enough to suggest a blessed relief when all should be
over. Occasionally Captain F. and I looked across at
each other, as we sat, keenly alive to every leaf stirring
in the dry scrub, while down upon the burning sands
and rocks blazed the relentless sun.

Suddenly there was a sound — monkeys trooping
through the jungle, high in the trees, grasping the
pliant branches and shaking them with rage ! A tiger
must be in the neighbourhood. Another second — the
jungle-grass waved and crackled, and out into the open
emerged and advanced slowly — a picture of fearful
beauty. A tiger seen in the Zoo gives no faint idea
of what one of his species is, seen under its proper
conditions. Beasts in captivity are under-fed, and have
no muscle ; but here before us was a specimen who
had always "done himself well," was fit as a prize-
fighter, every square inch of him developed to per-
fection. On he came, his cruel eyes lazily blinking in

266 A Sportswoman in India

the sun. His long, slouching walk, suggestive of such
latent strength, betrayed the vast muscle working firmly
through the loose, glossy skin, which was clear red and
white, with its double stripes, and the W mark on the
head.

The sight of such consummate power, as he swung
majestically along, licking his lips and his moustache
after his feed, was one of those things not soon to
be forgotten, and while it had a bracing effect on
the nerves, at the same time struck rather a chilling
sensation.

The tiger moved on. I sat with my rifle at full
cock, but he went straight up to Captain F.'s tree,
looked up, saw him, gave a fierce growl, and then
stood still about ten yards off. A loud detonation
followed ; but Captain F. must have made a poor
shot — he hit him behind, much too far back, the
bullet going down almost to his hock. The tiger
looked magnificent still — he stood on a little knoll,
lashing his tail and looking vindictively up into the
tree.

At one and the same moment Captain F. and
myself fired ; somehow or other we both missed him.
This was rather too much. In one moment, like
a flash, the tiger darted round, deliberately galloped
at the tree, sprang about half-way up into its lowest
branches, and, assisted by the natural oblique inclina-
tion of the trunk, swarmed up to the machdn as
quickly and easily as a cat. It was a terrible moment,
one of those of which we pray that they may be

WITH MY LAST BARREL I FIRED.

[Page 266.

Tiger'Shooting 267

few and far between ; most of us can lay a finger
on two or three such moments in our lives.

Poor Captain F., both barrels fired, and helpless,
had in desperation sprung to his feet, his hand on
the side of the machdn. Either the tiger's teeth or
his claws tore his finger all down the back of it
to the bone, but the whole action took place with
such lightning speed that it was hard to say which.

In my mind's eye, as the great body flew up the
tree, I pictured a ghastly struggle, a heavy fall, and
a sickening death ; at the same instant a moment's
intuition suggested a difficult but not impossible shot
at the tiger's back as he clasped the tree. With my
last barrel I fired. There was no time for a long and
steady aim ; but as the smoke cleared away — what
relief! — the tiger had dropped to the ground. With
nine lives — cat-like — he was not dead ; he walked
off and disappeared.

We dared not look for him then and there, dying
and savage in such rough and dangerous cover ; but
next morning we found him cold and stiff. He was
a magnificent male, very large and heavy, enormous
paws and moustache — a splendid " great cat."

Anybody would have admired the country we were
now in had it been less dry and burnt up ; but one
day we were in a considerably larger nullah than
usual, running down into the great Godavari River,
which rises in the mountains overhanging the Bombay
coast, and traverses the whole breadth of the central
table-land before it reaches the ocean on the eastern

268 A Sportswoman in India

shores of India. Here there were springs ; the sides
of the nullah were very steep and most beautifully
green and fresh ; it looked quite lovely after the baked
and brown appearance of the rest of the country,
and we feasted our eyes upon the moss and wet rocks.
It was very like a Yorkshire beck or a Scotch burn,
and in the rains the waterfalls there must have been
grand spectacles for the bears and tigers.

The Godavari is an extraordinary river — a thoroughly
Indian river. The first I saw of it was from the top of
a high hill, and it lay about thirty miles in the distance.
The shikari pointed it out with great pride. Its
average width there was, I suppose, about two miles ;
but at that time of year the river-bed was dry, and
almost the whole of the two miles was sand like the
sea-shore, the water being barely two hundred yards
across. We rode over it easily — it was fordable any-
where ; and finally we camped on the banks.

There were enormous fresh-water prawns in the
stream about six inches long, exactly like an ordinary
prawn ; a native zemindar sent us twelve as a present,
and eight potatoes, which last were considered most
valuable. The prawns struck us as being a little
" cold-blooded " at first, but curried afterwards they
were excellent.

I suppose that in the rains the whole bed of the
Godavari is full, and it must then be a most lovely
sight ; near our camp it was quite four miles across
from bank to bank. We had two of the most
appalling thunderstorms I have ever seen, while we

TigeivShooting 269

were by the river — indeed, I cannot remember anything
approaching them.

We were trying to shoot "muggers" (crocodiles)
one evening. The beasts were too wily, and directly
we got anywhere within shot, slid off the hot rocks,
where they lay sunning themselves, and disappeared
in deep water. So we sat down by the edge of the
river, waiting in case one might show himself again.

After a time one of us noticed, far away down
the valley, an .enormous cloud of yellow dust, nothing
more than the sand in the river-bed driven along in
front of an awful squall of wind right up the river.
On it came — a thousand miles an hour ! We watched
the water in the distance, lying smiling, calm, blue, in
the sun, suddenly turn a sort of black-green before it,
and then, in an instant, the storm burst upon us.
The river was turned into a leaping, boiling mass ;
we were right in the tempest. Fortunately, our camp
was only a hundred yards away, for the wind was
awful to struggle against, and the dust and sand were
almost blinding. We were hurled this way and that.

The servants had seen it coming and had secured
our tents, but both the poles of mine went smash,
broke short off under the strain. Struggling out of
the debris, I rushed into J.'s tent ; my own things
did not get very wet, as the tent, of course, lay over
them, and was fairly waterproof.

A terrific thunderstorm was meanwhile going on
over Bustar. It was a wonderful sight to watch, as
it crept over the sky nearer and nearer to us. The

270 A Sportswoman in India

clouds soon roofed us in, as black as night, torn every
moment by immense, great, jagged cracks of violet
lightning, which went right down the black sky from
top to bottom, making the river-bed as light as day.
(It was seven o'clock, and was just growing dark.)
Every rock and stone in it was lit up as though with
a search-light. The crashing peals of thunder sug-
gested the breaking up of the entire upper world.
And then hail and rain began — the skies poured sheets
of water. A poor native who was going from one
village to another was killed. They said that the hail-
stones, which were for two or three moments very
large, killed him ; but it was more probably merely
the fright — natives are killed by shock again and
again, dying of fright in a hopeless way, for no
reason at all. The storm lasted about an hour, at
the end of which time the drought-stricken plain was
a sheet of water.

We had just finished breakfast one morning, when
some excited natives came running up tr tell us that
a man near their village had been mauled by a tiger.
We asked for the man. <c Oh ! " they answered, " he
is dead — quite dead. How can he come before your
honour ! "

The same thing appeared to have happened before,
and possibly an old man-eater was in the neighbour-
hood. Where a tiger cannot get game or cattle, or
when he has become too old to stalk them easily,
for some reason or other, he may take to killing
natives ; but, unless provoked, he rarely attacks men.

Tiger*Shooting 271

We set off promptly for the village, Cherla, about
four miles off. It consisted of about half a dozen
thatched huts with the cowsheds belonging to them ;
there were two or three small fields of maize ; and
for several hundred yards on either side there was
a level and tolerably open expanse of grass, with a
few clumps of cardamums, high reeds, and bushes
scattered here and there. On approaching the village,
we saw the inhabitants clustering on the roofs and
at the doors of their houses, and we were assured that
the tiger was still somewhere quite close, though it
was not known exactly in what part of the cover
it then was. The guide who had brought us pointed
exultingly to the marks in the grass, which showed
unmistakably where the tiger had, in the dusk the
evening before, seized upon the poor native within
not more than a hundred and fifty yards from his
own hut, while a broad trail, by which he had been
dragged away, was still visible.

Afterwards during our beat we had to explore one
particularly thick piece of long grass which actually ex-
tended to the margin of the village, and in this we found
indications showing that the tigers went up to the very
doors of the houses ! So much for habit — second
nature ! People living in the vicinity of tigers soon
cease to be afraid of them.

But this seizure of one of their own number had
struck home, and they all seemed paralysed with
terror. As usual, the sight of a " Miss Sahib " risking
her life in such hazardous adventures filled them

272 A Sportswoman in India

with amazement. What object could I have ? What
pleasure could I hope to find? They one and all
begged me to stay behind with them in the village
Awhile the sahibs — also inexplicable beings — went forth
to do battle ; and were more mystified than ever when
I turned a deaf ear to their entreaties.

The shikaris having arranged to beat the supposed
" lie " of the tiger, we set off. I was right-hand gun
this time, and the beat had begun about ten minutes
by the watch in my wrist-strap. I was watching some
jungle-sheep — delightful little animals — trotting past
on my right, and had rather neglected my left for
a moment ; when " Eagh ! — bagh / " whispered my
gun-bearer from his perch on a branch near my
machan. Glancing round, the stirring sight of Stripes
himself appeared before my eyes, going at a great rate
through the underwood.

I had just time to fire both barrels, and to see that
the first, at any rate, had missed him. He galloped
off, roaring angrily ; though, talking of roaring, the
word is rather out of place — the sound heard at night
is more a kind of moan than a roar, and when a
tiger charges it utters a series of loud, furious sort of
grunts or growls ; however, " roar " is the word in use.
Much disgusted, when the beaters came up, I
climbed down. But on searching we found traces of
blood, and then, farther on, marks where he had dug
his claws deeply into the ground. The shikaris
declared that he must, after all, have been badly hit,
and would probably in half an hour or so be dead.

Tiger.Shooting 273

J. and Captain F. both agreed with them, and after
a consultation we sat down and had tiffin. A shikari
picked up my first bullet, so that I must have hit him,
as he disappeared, with my second shot. We sent the
beaters home, and having given the tiger two hours,
by which time we felt sure he would be dead, we
proceeded with three or four shikaris to follow up the
trail. The two others did try to persuade me not to
come, but it was hardly likely that I should fall in with
their views.

There are places, I believe, where tigers may be shot
on foct with comparatively little risk ; there are men
who have made a practice of shooting them thus ; but
still more have paid the penalty of their rashness, and
those who have survived will usually be among the first
to point out the danger.

Therefore here I may remark that our action was
that of fools. Expecting to find a corpse, we followed
the tracks quietly for about two hundred yards, and
then came upon a place where the tiger had evidently
lain down and lost much blood. They cling to life
with extraordinary tenacity. Again we followed the
tracks, and in the marshy ground the fresh fugs (foot-
marks) had water still oozing into them. We stole
in line through the trees and grass up to some tall
reeds — when our hearts stood still.

There was a spring : with an infuriated roar, and
bounding through the cover with open mouth, his tail
lashing his sides, his whole fur bristling, the tiger
charged straight at us !

18

274 A Sportswoman in India

Heavens ! what an unlooked-for moment !

I could see before me nothing but a shadowy form,
owing to the lightning speed of his movements — a
shadowy, striped form, with two large lamps of fire fixed
upon us with an unmeaning stare, as the beast rushed
upon us. Such was the vision of a moment. The trees
were so thick that I dared not shoot till he was close,
and I dimly recollect, even then, thinking that every-
thing hinged upon keeping cool and killing him if
possible. On he came. I fired straight at his chest at
about fifteen yards distance without moving at all ; and
then instinctively, almost miraculously, I sprang to the
left, as the tiger himself sprang fast us — so close that
I found his blood splashed over my gun-barrels after-
wards.

Captain F. had fired a shot sideways which knocked
out the tiger's teeth ; J. had hit him fair on the
shoulder, we found afterwards ; my bullet was nearly
in the centre of the chest. It would have been difficult
to have placed two bullets better than J.'s and my own.
Docs not this point to the uncertainty of ever dropping
a tiger on the spot, however straight the aim may
be ? For our friend was by no means dead ; he had
gone on.

But we had learnt our lesson, and were now imbued
with a wholesome fear of this tiger. It was getting
dark, so we retired and rode back to Cherla, where
a bevy of excited natives met us. We gave orders
for water-buffaloes to be collected, and next morning
started off about seven o'clock with a pack of over a

BOUNDING THROUGH THE COVER WITH OPEN MOUTH, THE TIGER

CHARGED STRAIGHT AT US. [Page 274.

TigeivShootin 275

hundred of them. We drove them into the place
where the tiger had disappeared, and very soon they
began making a fearful bellowing and uproar. We
watched, and could see no signs of him ; we left our
machdns, and running down, drove the buffaloes off.
They were snorting near his dead body.

He was only about a hundred yards from the place
where he had charged us last night, and he must
have died soon afterwards. He was a very heavy
old male, measuring exactly nine feet nine inches in
length. And so the poor native's death was avenged !
We found out then, of course, where our bullets had
hit him ; his first wound was through him, behind
the shoulder, but too low.

We looked at his massive paws : a tiger can with
one blow of his paw stun an ordinary-sized bullock,
or crush its skull. Those long white teeth, too !
Like a cat he springs upon a man, seizing the
shoulder in his mouth, while his teeth penetrate
right through chest and back to the lungs, at the
same time tearing the man's head with his claws.
We had had no ordinary escape.

Captain F. superintended his skinning ; we had
some lunch, paid the coolies, and then about four
o'clock J. and I went out alone for a stroll with one
village shikari. We climbed a steep, rocky hill about
a mile behind Cherla ; it was a " tigerish " spot, and
of course we carried guns. Tigers are met with so
unexpectedly that it is wise never to walk in jungles
frequented by them without a loaded gun or a rifle

276 A Sportswoman in India

in one's hand ; a shot in the nick of time will very
probably either stop or turn a charge.

We were walking very quietly along the side of the
hill, and about thirty yards above us, almost at the top
of the hill, were some steep rocks. Under one of
these, in the cool shade, sitting in a recess which he
had partly grubbed out for himself, the shikari, who
was in front, suddenly saw, looking at us, a large boar.
From his expression he wanted but slight provo-
cation to induce him to charge. No animal exceeds
the pig in ferocity, nor equals him in courage and
determination. Once roused, nothing upon this earth
will stop him, and he will boldly charge the largest
elephant who may have disturbed him without
further provocation. This boar was an enormous
brute ; if only one could have had him on an open
plain, where, with a good horse and spear, we might
have had a fair fight !

The shikari, of course, stopped, whispered, and
pointed. We were right below the pig, and dare
not fire from there, for we should have had to shoot
right uphill and straight at his head, and supposing
he was only wounded or missed altogether, he would
to a certainty have charged down upon us — and a
charging tusker is no fun. Pretending, therefore,
not to have seen him, and half retiring, we climbed
sideways up the hill, till we were almost at the top,
about twenty yards above the pig, and fifty yards
on one side of him. Still he sat on, perfectly in-
different, not caring twopence, and now giving an

Tiger'Shooting 277

easy sideways shot. J. fired, and he sprang out,
falling dead, at the same moment ; but such was the
impetus of his spring, and so steep was the hill, that
he went off, hurtling down end over end like a hoop,
and would most certainly have gone straight to the
bottom had he not fetched up against a tree. There
he lay, behind a broad trunk.

He had a fine and most formidable pair of tushes,
sharp as razors, protruding nearly three inches from
his great jaw, the remaining two-thirds being imbedded
in the jaw itself. We left him there and walked
back to Cherla ; then sent the shikari and six coolies
to bring him home. The pork we distributed among
the villagers.

About this time it became very much hotter than
hitherto, and until the end of our two months the
heat really was intense; 115° in the shade in our
tents was the highest, and I assure my readers that
sometimes it was awful. There was often a strong
wind, but it was so burningly hot that it only made
matters worse. At one camp we built a little hut
with thatched straw sides, and made coolies pour
water over the straw every hour, keeping them soak-
ing wet ; and then, as the wind blew through, it got
cooled and was quite fresh inside, though the cool,
damp air attracted hordes of insects. I used to soak
a handkerchief in water and put it in the crown of
my topi, resoaking it at every pool of water we
ever came across, even though it was very far from
cold.

278 A Sportswoman in India

All our drinks were either hot or tepid. The
only food the country supplied was eggs, chickens,
and an occasional sheep, of all of which we grew
exceedingly weary. For the rest, we lived entirely on
our tinned provisions.

There is one great objection to this sort of shooting :
namely, that there is so very little to do on the off
days when there is no kill and no beat. During
the first six weeks we three shot twelve head — that
is, seven tigers, one panther, two bears, one sambur,
and one pig. Six weeks seems a long time to give
to shooting four head — not an animal a week !

As we only had beats on two occasions on which
we did not find anything at all, and as only twice
did we see something in a beat but not kill anything, it
is to be gathered that there were a very large number
of days on which we had no beats. Of course, a
certain number of days were employed in marching ;
but as we always marched in the cool, early morning,
and never reached our camp later than ten o'clock,
there remained even of that day a long succession
of fruitless hours to be lived through.

Now, if we could have strolled out into the jungle
every evening from four to seven o'clock with a
rifle, and have come across deer of various sorts, here
and there having a shot at a fine stag, one would
never have been at a loss for something to do. As
it was, we might walk for miles and never see a
living animal. It is only in the last forty or fifty
years that the jungles of Central India have been

Tiger'Shooting 279

practically denuded of game, and it is a thousand
pities.

In Mysore there are strict game laws, but in
Central India there are none, and the native village
shikaris are rapidly ruining the country. These
shikaris shoot simply for food ; and as they kill
hinds, does, young, etc., indiscriminately, there are
no deer left. They .avoid tigers, panthers, and bears,
as a rule, partly because their guns would seldom
kill them and they themselves would run considerable
risk, partly because these animals are of little use for
eating purposes.

The endlessly long days of inaction and of furious
heat were trying to all our tempers ; and though
we were not as bad as a party I knew, who, after
being for some time not on speaking terms with
each other, threw up the expedition altogether, and
went their various ways, yet we had several somewhat
strained situations. Weeks after our shoot was over,
I was much amused with J.'s and Captain F.'s
diaries. In the latter I read :

" I was glad we got the tiger, but consider it a
great shame of J. to shoot him when he was sixty
yards off, as he would certainly have walked right
under my tree."

J.'s interested me more :

" On my return to camp surprised to find Edith
both rude and bad-tempered ; she is becoming a
perfect bore with her fits of temper. F. before the
beat was almost insulting, and told me that if I fired

280 A Sportswoman in India

to the left of a red ant-heap he would consider it
cribbing his shot."

(N.B. — Heat and flies are an excuse for writing
anything.)

I shot my third tiger under the following circum-
stances. We were each up in our machans ; and the
beaters were working towards us, trying to drive
out a tiger, who was evidently in a cool, damp spot,
where he wished to remain. Instead of waiting to
fire the tall, dry grass, or else sending buffaloes in,
either of which expedients generally moves a tiger,
the beaters, with the careless sangfroid which is so
characteristic of them, plunged on through the reeds
and must have got too close to him.

Suddenly, only two or three feet away from one
terror-stricken wretch, up leapt the tiger ! <c Bagh ! —
bagh / " resounded on all sides, and every man was
shinning up a tree in a moment for all he was worth.
It would have been a funny sight to watch the
whole jungle, apparently, vibrating under eighty or
more black bodies scurrying up like monkeys into the
branches ; but, fearing a catastrophe, we sat straining
our eyes, fully expecting the cry which ensued.

None of us actually saw what happened ; but I
gather that, as the tiger pounced, the native sprang
towards a tree. Where is a man, when matched
against that lithe, powerful body ? One dart, one
crunch, and the tiger dashed back at a gallop
farther into the jungle, while -the poor coolie subsided
on to the ground, bitten through the thigh. We

TigeivShooting 281

bathed him, bound him up, and sent him off at once
in a dhoolie with twenty-four men to carry him in
relays, to a hospital about forty miles off, at Yellandu
station. He died just before reaching it — of blood-
poisoning probably. It was the one sad accident
which spoilt our expedition.

Tigers' bites are often very poisonous, and even a
mere scratch-wound has been known to result in
lockjaw. After this experience the shikaris, not, alas !
" wise in time," collected a herd of bullocks and
drove them into the tiger's stronghold.

J. was not far from me, in his machan. I saw him
put up his gun ; we were about eighty yards apart,
and half-way between us ran a very shallow nullah,
with some evergreens over it. J. must have seen the
tiger. Would he come out on his side or on mine ?
No one who has not been in a similar situation could
understand the excitement of those moments, or how
I hoped against hope. For another fifteen minutes
there was a great clamour amongst the beaters.

Again J. put up his gun ; the tiger was moving
down our little nullah, but still some distance off.
I saw him ! He disappeared from us both under the
evergreens, and then, to my joy, he emerged from cover
and came out upon my side, having crossed over at
the bottom. He walked slowly up the edge of the
nullah ; and when he was abreast of me and about
forty yards off, I took a long, steady aim, and pulled
the trigger.

He gave a huge leap into the air, and I fired again,

282 A Sportswoman in India

and at the same time J. fired too. He squirmed
round on one side and glared up at my tree, seeing
me distinctly, and then rolled over dead. My first
shot, which of course had been a very easy one, was
just right — straight through his heart ; my second
had hit him behind ; J. did not hit him. As we
generally fired from different sides, it was not hard
to tell to whom a shot belonged.

This was the finest of my three, only exceeded in
size by one of Captain F.'s, which had a longer tail.
Enormous beasts they look, as they lie dead ; their
muscle, especially in the forearm, is colossal. This
skin was beautifully marked ; a lovely head with a
great, sprouting moustache ; he had a large yellow ruff
all round his neck ; the joint at his wrist measured
twenty-six inches round.

These three tigers were all which fell to my own
bag in the Deccan. J. shot five and Captain F. four
in our two months. We returned to civilisation, two
of us bearded like the pard, all burnt mahogany colour,
much lighter in weight, and quite fit. Alas ! to be
back in " the man-stifled town " again, after that life
in the jungle which defies all description. There is
so much connected with it which one never forgets,
and yet which is hardly worth describing, which
sinks into one's being and becomes part of oneself —
a precious part.

Do not set out on a tiger shoot without being
prepared for a great deal of discomfort. Your temper,
your personal comforts, will all be trodden under

Tiger-Shooting 283

foot, and every annoyance must be borne under
circumstances which amount sometimes almost to
purgatory. Unless a woman is physically strong, it
would be foolhardiness to spend eight weeks under
such conditions.

But, after all, it is worth it, and a high price has to
be paid because it is worth it.

CHAPTER IX
SNAKES.— DELHI

Experiences with Snakes— Cobras— An Inevitable
Death— Delhi— The Ridge— Mutiny Days— John
Nicholson— Palace of Great Moguls— A Native
Pageant— Kutab Minar— A Deserted City.

285

CHAPTER IX

SNAKES.— DELHI

City of tall fa£ades of marble !

Proud and passionate city — mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long accrued retribution ?

Could I wish humanity different?

Could I wish the people made of wood and stone ?

Or that there be no justice in destiny or time ?

WALT WHITMAN.

INDIA is, in the minds of a certain class of people,
connected indissolubly with snakes ; but as a
matter of fact, the ordinary Englishwoman, out there
for a year or so, is quite likely never to meet with
one in the whole of her visit. To most people that
would be no disappointment. " Those lithe and
elegant beings," as Rymer Jones calls them, are not
appreciated in one's bath-room and in inconveniently
dark corners.

A snake, if one considers it, is really a wonderful
animal. Without arms or legs, it is able to catch
its prey. It can swallow an animal twice the size
of its own head. It can leap its own length upwards
or sideways, though again it is without limbs of

any sort. It can lie under water happily for half

287

288 A Sportswoman in India

an hour. It has been known to fast for a year
and eleven months, taking no harm from so doing.
And last of all, one little puncture, from the fang
of some of the species, in the healthiest man, and
nothing in this world can save him.

My only wonder is that more natives do not die of
snake-bite, considering how little they are protected ;
a boot and a gaiter has saved many a European.
My sister-in-law was walking quickly round her
verandah one evening ; she went forward in the
twilight to meet her husband, and suddenly felt
her ankle wrapped round in the folds of a snake,
across which she had, without seeing it, walked. She
was a woman of some presence of mind, and she
instantly trod with all her weight upon what she felt
to be part of the snake under her foot. As luck
would have it, that part was the head of a cobra !
She killed it ; whereas, had it been its tail, she
would have been a dead woman.

It is more the exception than otherwise to meet
with snakes in the verandahs and rooms of bungalows,
but every now and then it occurs, as many tales have
testified. A cobra will come in in search of food :
of such things as rats and mice, or of kittens (at
an early stage), they are fond. Your chicken-house
will attract them, with its eggs and young chickens.
The pipe which carries off waste water from your
bath-room makes a capital way into a bungalow ;
and finding himself inside, the cobra instinctively
hides in some hole, a fissure in the walls being a

Snakes.— Delhi 289

favourite retreat ; failing that, within the bed, in
the folds of a quilt, or down in the bottom of an
earthenware pot, a snug retreat may be found. Up
in the roof is another favourite place, the thatch
affording excellent cover.

But the cobra is by no means aggressive, and when
he gets timely warning of the approach of man, he
will always endeavour to get out of his way ; it
is only when he is trampled upon inadvertently, or
otherwise irritated, that he attempts to use his fangs.

And yet no snake is the cause of greater loss of
life than the cobra di cafello, or nagay as he is called.
Unluckily, the species is very common, and out of
all those snakes which, after inflicting a wound,
have been killed or otherwise identified, the proportion
of cobras is enormous. In Bengal alone, in one year,
the number of persons who died of snake-bite
amounted to 6,219. ^n tne whole of India it is
estimated that more than twenty thousand deaths
occur annually from snake-bite, and it has been shown
that fully one-half may be attributed to the cobra.

A cobra generally grows to a length of about
five feet, and with the exception of the markings
on the head, is of a uniform brown colour above,
and bluish white underneath ; sometimes he has a
pair of very conspicuous white, black-edged, spectacle-
like marks on the expansible portion of the neck
called the hood. When the cobra is irritated or
excited, it spreads its hood, raising the first third
of its body from the ground, gliding along with

'9

290 A Sportswoman in India

the last two-thirds, and holding itself ready to strike
forwards or sideways.

Cobras are most active at night, though sometimes
found on the move during the day ; as a rule, however,
they are curled up under logs of wood, in holes in
walls and ruins, etc. They lay from eighteen to
twenty-five eggs, and leave them to hatch in the
sun ; they are much like a pigeon's egg.

Snakes are so awe-striking, creeping, sudden, and
dreadful, that the Egyptians, Hindus, Mexicans,
Japanese, and Chinese, may be pardoned for including
them among other terrifying phenomena as objects
of worship. There is hardly an Egyptian sculpture
to be found without a serpent. Now, in India, only
low-caste Hindus will kill snakes — a striking example
of a superstitious religion baffling the march of
civilisation. The Indian Government has offered a
small reward for the head of each poisonous snake,
and large numbers of cobras have been killed ; but
by natives in general they are regarded with super-
stitious reverence as a divinity, powerful to injure,
and therefore to be propitiated. Often when found in
their dwellings this snake is allowed to remain, and
is fed and protected — a dreadful joy ! Perhaps an
inmate is bitten and dies ; then, in some cases,
the snake will be most tenderly caught, deported
to some field, and there released and allowed to
depart in peace.

The horrors of death by snake-bite are a dark page
in Hindu history. It has been well said : " Under any

Snakes.— Delhi 291

circumstances, even when excision is immediately
resorted to, settle any affairs you have to settle in
this world as quickly as possible, if bitten by a full-
grown cobra or tik-polanga"

Snake poison is essentially a neurotic ; and when
it takes full effect it kills by annihilating in some
unknown way the source of nerve force. The poison
enters the circulation, and so reaches the nerve-centres.
If it finds entry by a large vein life may be destroyed
in a few moments ; as a rule it is a case of from two
to four hours. The blood itself appears to be affected
by the poison, which is also an irritant and causes
violent inflammation.

A man in the vigour of life is stricken down in a
moment, and his life ebbs away. A thick cord, about
twice as thick as a lead pencil, is wound and tied
round the limb as tightly as it can be fastened, above
the bitten place ; at the same time, the tiny wound
itself is burnt with a hot iron or lanced, in order to
promote bleeding. The patient must never be allowed
to lie on his back, nor to sleep, nor eat ; he should
keep moving as long as possible. But in spite of the
ligature and cauterisation, the poison works its way ;
choking in the throat and terrible pains follow, the
eyes grow dim, and then, happily, unconsciousness
usually ensues. Breathing becomes more difficult, and
convulsions precede death.

Such is the extraordinary effect of the poison. .The
blood, after one little injection of it, assumes an
absolutely inky hue. Speaking of the <c little injection,"

292 A Sportswoman in India

we have all heard people in the snake-house at the Zoo
say to each other, when watching the snake dart out
its tongue : " That's its sting ! Just one little touch
of that, and you're a dead man ! "

The tongue of a snake is not its sting. A snake
has no sting at all. Moles and mice have their quick
sense of smell to guide them, cats their whiskers,
insects their antennas ; snakes have tongues for the
same purpose, and the function of this ever busy,
ever vigilant member is to explore, while it barely
touches, every surface within reach. By night and by
day the tongue conveys all necessary information to
the brain. It is kept in a sheath, and its activity is
so rapid, that when alarmed it moves with almost
lightning-like speed. A snake never licks its prey ;
its tongue is only intended as a nerve-guide.

The way in which a cobra does inject poison is
as follows. It has eight poison-fangs in the upper
jaw, teeth which are artfully contrived by some
diabolical freak of nature as pointed tubes At the
extreme point of each tooth is an aperture like a tiny
slit cut in a quill. A little bag behind the eye, about
the size of an almond, contains the poison, which can
be forced through a passage, down the hollow teeth,
and out at the extreme tip right into the base of
the wound.

The cobra darts, or strikes, and supposing it to
strike home, its teeth will just penetrate through the
skin, and will leave behind them two or three tiny
punctures on the bitten limb. But if, as it bites, it

Snakes* — Delhi 293

is able to thrust its fangs in up to the roots, it will
fasten upon the bite and will not easily let go its hold ;
it must be shaken or jerked off. Again, punctures
will be found as though made by a needle, and
probably the wound will bleed slightly.

A snake, it must be remembered, has nothing else
to trust to except his teeth — they must be paws,
claws, nails, and talons, and unless he wants his food
to escape, they must never loose their hold for a
moment. Cobras, which belong to the first class of
snakes, kill their prey by poison. The second class
comprises snakes which kill their prey by means of
constriction or smothering it in their coils. The third
class kill by swallowing their prey, or suffocation.
Supposing that a snake were to open its mouth for a
moment for the purpose of what we call biting, its
prey would escape ; but its teeth do not inflict wounds,
they merely hold and move the food, and its jaws work
almost like hands in guiding the food. Long, conical,
curved, claw-like instruments, the arrangement of the
teeth is like that of a mousetrap, easy enough to
enter, but impossible to escape from.

A man whom I knew well in India, who was an
old Qjui Hai, told me that a cobra once got through a
chink in his hen-house, and ate so many eggs from
under a sitting hen that it was much too large to
escape through the same exit, and it remained half in
and half out, where it was discovered the next morning
in a surfeited condition. On killing it and opening its
body, the eggs were all found unbroken and warm.

294 A Sportswoman in India

They were replaced under their mother, and in due
time hatched, none the worse for their strange in-
cubation.

At first sight it is puzzling to see how any animal
can swallow whole a body, such as an egg, considerably
larger than its own head. The reason is that the
bones of the head and jaws are loose, and can be
enormously stretched and distorted.

The head-bones of higher animals are, of course,
consolidated ; but in the case of snakes, these bones
are united by ligaments so elastic as to enable them
to separate and to allow of the snake swallowing an
animal twice the size of its own head.

The snake has four jaws above and two below,
and its teeth are recurved — that is curve inwards-
down the throat. To begin with, the two bones which
form the lower jaw separate widely and move in-
dependently ; then the bones in the roof of the mouth
do the same ; lastly, the four upper jaw-bones, all
furnished with long, fine, recurved, close-set teeth,
adapted for grasping and holding like fish-hooks, not
for dividing or mastication in any way, come apart
also, and the mouth itself can be opened horizontally
as well as vertically. The teeth once hooked in their
prey, the action is continuous, the throat going on
with the work begun by the teeth, which grasp and
work the food in with a movement so gradual as to
simulate suction.

Thus a cobra will swallow a young chicken — and
the working arrangements of its jaws are worthy of

Snakes* — Delhi 295

consideration. Having caught and held the body,
" one jaw is then unfixed, by the teeth of that jaw
being withdrawn and pushed forward, when they are
again unfixed farther back upon the prey. Another
jaw is then unfixed, protruded, and reattached. So
with the rest in succession, this movement of pro-
traction being almost the only one of which they are
susceptible while stretched apart to the utmost by the
bulk of the animal encompassed by them. Thus by
their successive movements the prey is slowly intro-
duced into the gullet."

A snake can have hardly any sense of taste, for
hair, feathers, fur, and dust must all alike be swallowed,
completely disguising whatever flesh they cover.
Perhaps it is because feeding is so little pleasure to
the snake that he feeds but seldom, and when he
troubles to do so, does it very thoroughly, in order
that his meal may last a long time. He has no
beak nor claws to divide his food and enable him
to taste, but he abundantly coats it with saliva, his
mouth watering over it, and thus lubricates the un-
comfortable coating of fur or feathers.

If any apology should be needed for writing at
such length upon snakes, I must remind my readers
that, having been brought into contact with certain
animals, it follows, as a matter of course, that one
learns something of their ways. For instance, I heard
of a pony one morning which had stepped upon a
krait. It struck him upon the upper part of the
foreleg. A ligature was put on at once above the

296 A Sportswoman in India

mark of the bite, binding the limb with very great
pressure. The poison began to tell in a few moments.
The pony reeled about, breathing heavily, and evi-
dently suffering greatly. In a quarter of an hour
it fell down, and lay on the ground struggling so
pitiably that an end was put, with a gun, to such a
painful scene. The snake had struck a large vein.

One more sad experience and I have done. My
brother-in-law, at Derajat, had a grass-cutter named
Jahm, a healthy young man, twenty-two years old.
One morning he was taking his pipe out of a hole
in the stable wall, and as he reached in his hand, felt
a sudden, sharp bite — a snake had darted at his middle
finger. My brother-in-law was fetched, and saw
him ten minutes after it happened, by which time
the servants had already put a ligature tightly round
the finger. The mark of the bite was so slight as
to be almost hard to see — two little punctures alone
were visible ; and there was hardly any pain in the
finger.

The man himself had only caught sight of the end
of the snake, and unfortunately it had darted back
into the wall, with no hopes of being able to find
it again and kill it. Judging from the absence of
pain, my brother-in-law concluded that it was a non-
venomous snake ; but Jahm himself, from the glimpse
he caught of it, thought it was a bis-cobra. If this
were the case, his days were numbered. My brother-
in-law put on a second ligature at once, higher up,
round the man's arm ; and still the only pain he felt

Snakes* — Delhi 297

was from the great swelling and pressure of the two
ligatures. At the same time an escharotic was applied.
About an hour after he was bitten, Jahm said he
felt intoxicated, his eyelids began to droop, and he
staggered when walking. He was kept moving by
my brother-in-law, but he began to speak with diffi-
culty, being inclined to choke. Ammonia was injected
into his left arm, and at first it roused him wonderfully ;
but pain was by this time shooting up the right arm
and extending all over the body. His pulse beat
steadily, and he was perfectly conscious. His relations
were all sent for. The paralytic symptoms increased,
and he could no longer walk, however much he was
helped. Choking became worse, and it was impossible
for him to speak. My brother-in-law injected a
second dose of ammonia, but it roused him less ; after
which his legs became paralysed and his breathing
more difficult. Artificial respiration was resorted to.
The poor fellow died four hours 'from the time he
was bitten.

But snakes are not all evil, and they fill an important
place in the animal world. Out in India their beautiful
shape helps them to penetrate into dense and noisome
morasses where no other flesh-eating animal could find
footing, and they clear miles upon miles of jungle, bog,
and swamp of swarms of lesser vermin which would
otherwise die and produce pestilences ; while they are
themselves food for badgers, weasels, rats, hedgehogs,
hogs, and goats.

A snake belonging to Mr. Thomas Bell, F.L.S.,

298 A Sportswoman in India

F.G.S., shall leave my readers with a pleasant
impression of the species. It has been questioned
whether snakes will drink milk. His own tame
python on May 6th laid fifteen eggs, one after another.
She collected them all and arranged them in a cone-
shaped pile, and rolled herself round them so as to
completely hide every one. Her temperature rose
largely, and for a snake, which is a cold-blooded
animal, she was quite warm. (Snakes do not breathe
with short, regular inspirations, which would warm the
blood, but when they respire they take in a supply
of air to last them for some time.) Covering the
eggs entirely, her head was at the summit of the
cone. She had eaten in the preceding February six or
seven pounds of raw beef and a live rabbit. While
incubating the eggs she drank milk out of a basin five
times. Indeed, owing to her rise of temperature, her
want of water was so great that she evinced uneasiness
to Mr. Bell, and permitted him to move and turn her
head so that she could dip the end of her muzzle into
the basin.

On July 2nd the eggs hatched. The mother, on
the 3rd, ate six more pounds of beef, after her
long fast. The little ones were changing their coats
for the first fourteen days, during which time they
drank and also bathed themselves ; they then ate
some little sparrows, throwing themselves upon them
and constricting them like grown-up pythons.

The cobra-worshipping Hindus were in the habit
of placing eggs for their gods, which are, as a rule,

Snakes*— Delhi 299

terrible robbers of hen-roosts, returning again and
again. In sending off cobras from India to the Zoo,
egg-boxes filled with hens' eggs are always packed
with them and despatched by the cobras on the
journey.

A repulsion towards snakes is ingrained, naturally,
in the heart of man, and yet they are worthy of
admiration. Huxley used to say that the most beautiful
piece of anatomy he knew was the vertebra of a snake.
In some species there are four hundred joints in a
snake's spine ; each one fits with a ball and socket into
the next, and every joint therefore can move in every
direction — the utmost pliancy of motion. Each joint
supports a pair of ribs, which are connected with the
scales. These are formed of folds of skin, and they
move with the ribs. Think of four hundred little
joints and four hundred pairs of little ribs ; contem-
plate it reverently.

Snakes seem to have three different modes of
progression : on smooth, plane surfaces by means of
their rib legs ; through high grass by rapid, almost
invisible, sinuous, onward movements like swimming ;
and in climbing straight walls by creating a vacuum
with the ventral scales.

A snake as a rule moves along the ground in a
serpentine way ; but it can proceed most quickly by
arching its body off the ground, and a large snake
will advance at an immense speed in an undulating
form. It can out-climb the monkey, out-swim the
fish, out-wrestle the athlete, leap its own length

300 A Sportswoman in India

upwards or sideways, kill and devour animals double
the size of its head, without arms or talons or feet.

But I have lingered long enough over one of India's
oldest inhabitants, and, interesting though they are,
deeply as the subject impresses itself upon one's notice
during a stay in the East, we have paid sufficient
attention and respect due unto its name, and must
return to our own travels.

Leaving Mian Mir at 5 p.m. on October 22nd,
General Sir George Wolseley, B., and myself went
off by train to Delhi en route for the south of India.
We left in the evening, had breakfast at some station
on the way next morning, and arrived about 10.30 a.m.
We drove straight to Laurie's Hotel, where we found
letters waiting for us, and a comfortable set of rooms.
Having tubbed, and got through some writing and
reading, we set out in a carriage, for the hottest part of
the day was nearly over. Laurie's Hotel lies outside
the city, and all the morning I had been looking at
the great stone walls and the gates, picturing Delhi on
that memorable day in May only forty-four years ago.

Walking through those very streets which were
once crowded with an infuriated, fanatical Eastern mob,
and stained with our own countrymen's blood, one
meets many an old, wizened native, and looking at
them one feels, " that very man probably saw it all " ;
that in those Mutiny days he may have stood by at
the butchery of our ancestors and our friends. Most
of us have heard at one time or another of con-
nections of Mr. Fraser (the Commissioner), of

Snakes* — Delhi 301

Mr. Hutchinson (the Collector), of Captain Douglas
(the Commandant of the Palace Guards), of the Rev.
Mr. Jennings (the Residency Chaplain), who besides
officers, their wives and families, civil and non-official
residents whose houses were within the city walls, were
one and all massacred by the natives in Delhi.

The dark faces of the Sepoys belonging to the
native infantry regiment, which, with one wing of a
European regiment stationed within the fort, usually
makes up the garrison, were typical of the vast lines
of rebel soldiery, variously estimated at from fifty
thousand to seventy thousand disciplined men, who
must have surged up and down these very thorough-
fares, after they had shot down all their own English
officers and had thrown all restraint to the winds.

The Mutiny and the occupation of Delhi fell as
a thunderbolt upon India. Warning after warning
sent in to headquarters by the collectors and other
civil authorities, suspicious circumstances, such as the
passing of the chupatties (the sowing of the wind),
were alike unheeded, and the English residents in
Delhi were left to reap the whirlwind. What the
exact motives were to which the Mutiny can be
assigned never have been, and never will be, precisely
known, simply because between the white man and
the black man racial laws have fixed a great gulf,
and a European can no more enter into the workings
of an Oriental's brain than an Oriental could under-
stand a North American Indian chief.

It is probable that the natives were disturbed by the

302 A Sportswoman in India

repeated British annexation of native states, also by
the spread of education, and by the appearance of the
steam-engine and telegraph wires. The Bengal Sepoys
especially, all of them men of high caste, thought they
could see into the future further than the rest of their
countrymen, and they dreaded what they put down
as denationalising. The influence of panic in an
Oriental population is greater than might be supposed ;
it spreads like fire. Natives readily believe the wildest
stories, and act upon their fears.

The numerous dethroned princes, their heirs, and
their widows, systematic and intriguing wire-pullers,
with everything to gain by a revolution, having money
in abundance with which they could buy the assistance
of skilful spies and plotters, took advantage of any
spirit of disaffection. In this critical state of affairs,
of which the Government had no official knowledge,
a rumour was circulated through the cantonments of
the Bengal army that cartridges had been served out
greased with the fat of animals unclean alike to Hindu
and Mohammedan.

After this nothing could quiet the minds of the
Sepoys ; officers were insulted by their men, and all
confidence was gone. The storm burst.

As we drove up to Delhi its great wall of solid
stone confronted us, constructed more than two
hundred years ago by Shah Jehan, and subsequently
strengthened by the English at the beginning of the
present century by a ditch and glacis. Those im-
provements cost us dear.

Snakes* — Delhi 303

Delhi lies upon the right bank of the River Jumna,
and the eastern side, where the city extends to the
bank, is the only part of it without wall ; even here
the high bank is faced with masonry. The circuit of
the actual wall round the city is five and a half miles,
and it has ten gates. It was interesting to see the
long, white, straight road which leads to Meerut, and
was watched with such eager anxiety by our few
English survivors from the Flagstaff Tower for days
after the Mutiny had broken out.

It was at Meerut that the Sepoys first revolted.
Having shot down their English officers on parade, the
die was cast, and in a mad frenzy they rushed off to
the jail, breaking it open, and releasing all the prisoners.
Running through cantonments, they cut down every
European whom they met. Then they streamed off
in a body to the neighbouring city of Delhi, to stir up
the criminal population of that great " Babylon," to
disaffect the native garrison there, and to place them-
selves under the authority of the discrowned Mogul
Emperor, who was then living in the Palace of Delhi,
with a pension of a hundred and twenty thousand
pounds a year, and exclusive jurisdiction over the
building itself — though the city was under British
administration.

Along that very road the mutineers rushed. But
meanwhile Meerut was the strongest military station in
India, for it possessed a large European garrison of
foot, horse, and guns, sufficient to overwhelm the
mutineers before ever they reached Delhi. What did the

304 A Sportswoman in India

general in command do that night and the next day ?
Simply nothing at all. Oh for a John Nicholson at
that moment !

Another sight had seen that morn,
From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn !

No one was more astonished than the natives in
Delhi that no help came from Meerut ; and finding
this to be the case, the native troops in cantonments,
consisting of three regiments of native infantry and a
battery of artillery, threw in their lot with the mutineers,
shot down their officers, and the whole Mohammedan
population of Delhi rose. So runs the history of the
Mutiny.

Leaving the city on our right, we drove up first
on to the famous Ridge, and along it to the Flagstaff
Tower. The country is a good deal overgrown now
with small thickets between the Ridge and the city,
but we made out the positions of the guns when the
city was finally shelled and taken.

It must have been a weary sojourn on the Ridge for
the little British force, who were encamped upon it for
three long months, until sufficiently reinforced to take
the city. All that they could do was to hold the
position until the arrival of the siege-train and rein-
forcements ; their sufferings from the heat, and after-
wards the rains, from cholera and sunstroke, dysentery
and enteric, and from the daily attacks of the rebels,
must have been great.

Along the top of the Ridge runs a road, and from

Snakes.— Delhi 305

it we had a view of the whole position. There,
from their encampment upon the Ridge, the survivors
of the massacre, the little band of besieged, rather
than besiegers, lay overlooking the city, so close to
it that the clamour and everlasting hum of its huge
native population, now swelled by sixty thousand rebel
Sepoys within its walls, must have been heard day and
night. The little overworked handful of Europeans,
Sikhs, and Gurkhas, fought pitched battles and
skirmishes time after time with the mutineers, and as
often repulsed them with heavy loss.

Their general died of cholera in July, and hope had
sunk low indeed by the time reinforcements and siege-
artillery began to arrive. Even then it was long before
it was decided to make the assault. Three months
looking at the city had had the effect of making it
appear more impregnable than ever. The British force
upon the Ridge never exceeded eight thousand men,
while the rebels numbered six or seven times that
amount. But a god was at hand, and his mere
presence proved more valuable than the reinforcements
which he brought with him in August to the hard-
pressed, weary watchers on the Ridge.

John Nicholson saved the situation. Upon the
frontier this man had been literally worshipped by the
natives ; a rugged, great soul, he had " more resolution
in the heart of him, more light in the head of him,
than other men," and he "grappled like a giant face
to face, heart to heart, with the naked truth of things."
The times — dead, dry fuel, waiting for the lightning —

20

306 A Sportswoman in India

called him forth. He came ; and all blazed round him
when he had once struck upon it, into fire like his own.

Carlyle says there is " a certainty of heroes being
sent us," and that it is our faculty, our necessity, to
worship heroes when sent. A man born to lead, a
man with an extraordinary personality such as John
Nicholson's — there was no question of his adequate
recognition. Delhi must be taken, and taken at
once, before fruitless skirmishes, heart-sickness born
of hope deferred, fever and ague, had rotted and
sapped the strength of the forces.

The Kashmir Gateway and the long face of northern
wall fronted us as we stood upon the Ridge.
Nicholson had his heavy batteries planted before
them, and after five days' ceaseless cannonading, a
practicable breach was reported. On the morning
of September i4th the assault was delivered, the
points of attack being the Kashmir bastion, the water
bastion, the Kashmir Gate, and the Lahore Gate. The
assault was thoroughly successful, and after six days'
desperate fighting in the streets, Delhi was retaken,
but at the cost of 66 English officers, 1,104 men>
and John Nicholson.

The Mutiny Memorial at one end of the Ridge
deserved a better architect, but it would be a hard
thing to design well, and, at any rate, it serves to
commemorate one of the fiercest struggles England
has ever known. A great contrast is the plain grave
between the Ridge and the city, with its simple head-
stone and sole inscription, " John Nicholson."

Snakes.— Delhi 307

We drove down to the old Kashmir Gate, battered
with the cannonade of that September, the walls
riddled and torn with shells. Just in front of the
gate is the little bridge, under the shelter of which
crouched the plucky bugler Hawthorne who sounded
the regimental call of the 52nd. And the gate
itself— what memories does it not recall ! — of the three
sappers who one after another, as man after man
was shot down, rushed up to light the fuse which
was to blow in the gate — rushed forward to certain
death as they stooped, match in hand, an easy mark
for the enemy through the loopholes above.

As we drove in through the gateway, upon our
left was the great breach in the walls — the scene
where our brave fellows planted their scaling-ladders
and positively fought, Lord Roberts says, for the
glory of being first man over the edge of the parapet,
although the first two or three men were absolutely
certain to be shot through and through, falling back-
wards one after another, the instant they showed over
the edge of the breach. But over their dead bodies,
and into the thick of the Sepoys on the other side,
our men gallantly poured.

Down one little street on our right Nicholson
himself fell, at the head of a storming party, cheering
and leading on his men, who had momentarily hung
back in the face of a " tight corner." Shot through
the body, he lingered for a fortnight, and had the
satisfaction of knowing that Delhi had been retaken.

Again upon our left we passed the Delhi magazine.

308 A Sportswoman in India

It was at the time of the Mutiny the largest magazine
in the north-west of India, and enormous accumu-
lations of munitions of war were stored up there.
It was under the charge of Lieutenant Willoughby,
with whom were two other officers and six non-
commissioned officers. The Meerut mutineers arrived
at Delhi early in the morning of May nth; and
the magazine was defended to the last by the little
band, who could hardly believe that succour from our
strong European garrison at Meerut was not already
upon its way. With what bitter anxiety they must
have watched the long white road ! . . . Further defence
being useless, and faithful to the last, however faithlessly
headquarters treated them, they fired the magazine.
Five of the nine were killed by the explosion, and
Lieutenant Willoughby died of his injuries ; the
remaining three succeeded in making their escape.

Delhi is full of such memories as these. " We
won India by force, and we must ever be prepared
to keep it by this stern yet unavoidable luxury " — an
expensive luxury, Clive might have added.

A great part of the city is taken up now by a
large open space, laid out and planted, known as
the Queen's Gardens, where carriages can drive ; but
in the days of the Mutiny, from wall to wall Delhi
was a seething, murmuring hive of over a hundred
and fifty-two thousand Mohammedans and Hindus ;
the narrow, tortuous streets, ending often in culs de
sac^ and the busy bazaars, swarmed with this vast
black population.

Snakes. — Delhi 309

But after the retaking of Delhi had cost six days
of desperate fighting and horrible house-to-house
butchery throughout the dense native quarter, we
find, when that week was over, the city presenting
another scene. One of the leading officers writes :
" That march through Delhi in the early morning
light was a gruesome proceeding. Our way from
the Lahore Gate through the Chandi Chauk led
through a veritable city of the dead : not a sound
was to be heard but the falling of our own footsteps ;
not a living creature was to be seen. Dead bodies
were strewn about in all directions, in every attitude
that the death-struggle had caused them to assume,
and in every stage of decomposition. We marched
in silence or involuntarily spoke in whispers, as
though fearing to disturb those ghastly remains of
humanity. The sights we encountered were horrible
and sickening to the last degree. Here a dog gnawed
at an uncovered limb ; there a vulture, disturbed
by our approach from its loathsome meal, but too
completely gorged to fly, fluttered away to a safer
distance. In many instances the positions of the
bodies were appallingly lifelike. Some lay with their
arms uplifted as if beckoning ; and indeed the whole
scene was weird and terrible beyond description.
Our horses seemed to feel the horror of it as much
as we did, for they shook and snorted in evident
terror. The atmosphere was unimaginably disgusting,
laden as it was with the most noxious and sickening
odours.

310 A Sportswoman in India

" It is impossible to describe the joy of breathing
the pure air of the open country after such a horrible
experience ; but we had not escaped untainted. That
night we had several cases of cholera."

Can Englishmen be blamed for showing little mercy ?
It was the women called for vengeance, and when have
British soldiers not rushed to that cry ? The native
population was expelled the city, acres of it were
cleared of slums, gardens and so on being substituted.
Later on, Hindus were readmitted, but Mohammedans
were rigorously excluded for years. At the present
time Delhi is a prosperous commercial town and a
great railway centre.

We passed the Bank and the Commissioner's house,
a pleasant-looking white bungalow, standing in a
garden, where, alas ! his wife and daughters were
murdered by the mutineers, and those in the Bank
shared their fate.

Farther on we were pointed out some old trees :
there the two native princes from the Palace had
Europeans and Eurasians strung up, watching them
being killed after they had been hunted down and
caught.

Then we turned into the principal street in Delhi —
the street par excellence in all India for beauty and
for good things well made, the Chandi Chauk, or Street
of Silver, which leads from the fort to the Lahore
Gate, and is three-quarters of a mile long and seventy-
four feet broad. All down its centre, on both sides
of its raised path, stand up a double row of the sacred

Snakes*— Delhi 31 1

fipdl and nim-trees, shading the street and the gay,
picturesque bazaars on either side. Delhi silver-work
is of the most beautiful design ; the Kashmir shawls
and the fhulkaris (wall-hangings), the woven stuffs
and the embroideries with gold thread running through
them, charm the rich merchants, while the quaint old
native armour and the interesting native jewelry
would gladden a collector's heart.

Above and beyond its other memorials, Delhi has
its Jama Masjid, the great mosque. It stands out
boldly from a small piece of rocky rising ground,
and is one of the most impressive buildings of its
kind in the whole of India. It was begun by the
Mogul Emperor Shah Jehan (who also built the Taj)
in 1632, and it was finished six years later. We
climbed the forty steps to its gateway — immense steps,
each a hundred and fifty feet long — to find our-
selves in a vast courtyard four hundred and fifty feet
square, entirely paved with granite inlaid with marble.

From the courtyard we looked down upon the
whole of the busy city which stretched below and
around us ; outside the walls the backbone of the
Ridge showed, lying solemn and quiet in the evening
light, and like the city, almost too matter-of-fact,
too peaceful, to ring in the imagination with the
sounds and sights of the Mutiny, to be peopled by the
ghostly troops of fancy. We walked over the granite
courtyard, surrounded by the usual Mogul cloister or
colonnade ; the blocks of sandstone in the roof of
the cloister were enormous — fifteen feet long.

A Sportswoman in India

The mosque itself is a splendid oblong structure,
two hundred and sixty-one feet in length, and ap-
proached by a magnificent flight of stone steps. The
old Moguls knew how to build fitting temples for
worship ! Three domes of white marble rise from
the roof, with two tall and graceful minarets at the
corners in front. The mosque is paved throughout
and lined and roofed with white marble. It holds
at least ten thousand Musalmans on a Friday, who
prostrate themselves each on a pattern on the marble
floor.

There was still light enough to visit what was once
the palace of Shah Jehan, where, at the time of the
Mutiny, the old King of Delhi, Bahadur Shah, his
sons and his "wives, were all living in Eastern magni-
ficence and luxury. His court steeped in intrigue,
the old king was no more than a puppet in the hands
of the princes and his wives. Directly the Mutiny
broke out he was proclaimed Emperor, and his sons
appointed to various military commands ; but when
Delhi was taken, he fled and took refuge in Humayun's
tomb, outside the city, and was brought in as prisoner
by Hodson, the intrepid leader of a corps of irregular
horse, who with his own hand shot down the two
princes ; Bahadur Shah, the last of the Moguls, was
banished to Rangoon.

The gateway of the palace, the Lahore Gate, is
supposed to be one of the finest gateways in the
world : three sides of the palace are walled in by an
imposing battlemented wall ; the fourth a,buts directly

Snakes.— Delhi 3T3

on the river. Since the Mutiny a great part of the
palace has been demolished in order to make room
for English barracks.

We drove in under the great archway. Where are
now the Harem Court, the Burj-i-Shamali, the Mitiaz
Mahal, the Nanbat Khana, the Golden Mosque, and
the fountains and gardens, which all once formed part
of the most magnificent palace in the Old World ?
Many beautiful buildings have been, preserved intact,
but without the courts and corridors connecting them,
they lose all their meaning and more than half their
beauty. We walked through hall after hall, room
after room, rich, in the past, with a vast pomp and
splendour difficult for a European to conceive. What
embroideries and gorgeous curtains hung once upon
the old disused hooks in the marble walls ! what
heavy Persian carpets doubtless deadened the footfall
in those gilded halls!

Once already, attention has been drawn in an early
part of this volume to the wonderful and beautiful
Hall of Private Audience — the Diwan-i-Khas — where
runs again and again the inscription written in Arabic,
in gold letters upon white marble, " If there is an
Elysium on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this."
Wall after wall reiterates it, and it must have been
a heaven in the Oriental eyes, for it embodied the
triumph of opulence and lavish splendour, the acme
of a bizarre glory, such as the old race of Moguls,
and none since them, only knew.

Time saw the silver ceiling looted from the length

314 A Sportswoman in India

and breadth of the Diwan-i-Khas, the ceiling which
once reflected the soft light of a hundred perfumed
hanging lamps. The gorgeous Peacock Throne, of
which I have spoken before, gleaming and flashing
with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, a thing itself
which was beyond value, is now no more ; but these
were looted long ago by Nadir Shah, who, the reader
will recollect, carried off money amounting at the lowest
conception to eight or nine millions sterling, other spoil
which amounted to several millions more, and above
and beyond all, jewels of which no man can tell the
value. But even now the empty courts, with their
wonderful painted marble walls, and their beautiful
pillars and ceilings, carved and coloured with an
imperious grace, richly decorated, and yet with the
detail lost in the whole quiet effect, are striking to a
degree. An unobtrusive splendour exceeds all other
splendour.

Perhaps because they live in a land of sun and
of glare, the Oriental management of light is almost
instinctive. Open to the fresh air and with its many
colonnades and arches, there was yet a sense of rest
throughout the palace, owed in great degree to the
arrangement of the quiet light, which is thrown off
the sheeny surface of marble, polished and mellowed
to a pale ivory with age.

After dinner that evening we repaired again to
the native quarter of the city ; it is hardly ever
devoid of interest. A festival of sorts was going on,
I forget now what, but processions of natives were

Snakes. — Delhi 315

patrolling the cramped, winding ways — bullock-carts
and cars, decked with flowers, carrying masked figures.
It was a weird and gorgeous spectacle in the midst
of the darkness ; the houses were burning coloured
lights, and blue and gold flame curled up the streets,
while here and there a bright flare from a pot of
resinous stuff gleamed upon the moving sea of dark
faces and bright garments.

Before one low house the crowd had come to a
standstill ; it was gorgeously illuminated, and native
music was thumping wildly from the roof-top. A
curtain was drawn aside, and a rough stage revealed
half-way up the front of the house. The play was
in dumb show ; the masks were grotesque, the dresses
simple. The spectacle might have been interpreted
in many ways. It was full of meaning, both obvious
and obscure ; but the surroundings lent themselves
to heighten the effect, and the whole scene not only
demanded much from the imagination, but supplied
it as well. There was about it a mysticism which
seems somehow to belong to Hindus and Mohamme-
dans, to all Orientals alike ; an unreality woven round
their lives which makes them beings apart from
Europeans, and occasionally sheds a glamour about
their inexplicable ways.

A show of this nature in London by Cockneys
would have been a painful fiasco, falling absurdly flat ;
but here in Delhi it was in perfect keeping with the
incomprehensible old Eastern race, and its crudities,
its garish lights, its bizarre colours, were only

316 A Sportswoman in India

heightened by the rude simplicity of the arrangements,
by the weird music, by the flaring street under the
quiet stars, by the impressed throng, and by the
strenuous demand upon the imagination. The whole
scene might have been a dream inspired by the
marble buildings, by the tall minars, and by this
ant-heap of humans swarming round their wood
and mud houses — a murmuring, gesticulating, seething
welter of inflammable emotions and passions.

The next morning we drove out nine miles from
Delhi to see two of the most interesting monuments
left in India. One is the famous Kutab Minar, a
tapering round tower, like a pencil set upright on
one end ; the other is a solid shaft of some wrought
metal of which the actual nature is unknown ; twenty-
five feet are above ground, twenty-two are below.
It stands sunk in stone, and bears a Sanscrit inscription
in six lines recording the history of one Raja Dhava.

As we drove out of Delhi along hot and dusty
roads shaded by tamarisks, stony, sandy soil on
either sides, cultivated only through careful irrigation,
we were making our way across what was evidently
a land of ruins. Empty tombs and cracked walls,
crumbled domes and shattered pillars, broke the
monotonous stretches on either side the road ; here
and there a few trees testified to what had once
been a well-watered garden, while a ruined gateway
and marble pavement suggested a bygone home.
Small wonder when it is known that the debris of
ancient buildings around Delhi covers an area of

KUTAB TOWER (BEYOND DELHI). [Page 316.

Snakes. — Delhi 317

forty-five square miles. Imagine London spreading
down to Oxford !

Delhi has been the site of a city from time
immemorial, long before Christianity was heard of,
possibly when the Aryans first spread over India ;
tradition, at least, has it so. The name Delhi is first
met with about a hundred years before Christ, but
by that time the city, which in the Dark Ages was
by the river, had spread, or moved itself, nine miles
beyond, to the spot where the Kutab Minar now
rears itself. Another blank . . . and the carved
metal pillar just described is a memorial of the
third century after Christ.

Delhi appears at last in history in A.D. 736, and from
then up to the Mutiny it seems to have been the
scene of continual conflict, and every fresh conqueror
appears to have founded a fresh city a few miles
removed from the last.

The last great Hindu ruler of Delhi was attacked
in 1191 by the Mohammedans, overthrown, and the city
became henceforth the capital of the Mohammedan
Indian Empire, Kutab-ud-dln building a great mosque
and the Kutab Tower on the Hindu ruins. Three
dynasties rose and fell ; the Pathan kings had been
content with the ancient Hindu capital, altered and
adorned by each of them, but the fourth ruler built
a new capital four miles to the east, called Taghlakabad ;
the ruined streets, lanes, and fort of the long deserted
city are plainly visible.

Once more, Feroz Shah Taghlak transferred the

ji8 A Sportswoman in India

capital to yet a new site, which he chose a few miles
off, and to which he gave his own name Ferozabad.
A tall, thin pillar made out of a single piece of stone
is called Feroz Shah's kotela, and it may have been
part of one of his buildings. Others say that it
is of immense antiquity, and call it a Buddhist Idt.

Later on the capital was removed to Agra. Then
again Baber invaded India, killed the monarch, and
rebuilt Delhi. But peace there was none. His son
was in his turn defeated and expelled. Once more
the usurper entirely rebuilt the city. However, Persia
came to the rescue, the usurper was overthrown, and
the rightful ruler reinstated. Again Delhi is built,
enclosed, and fortified afresh !

Next upon the scene comes the great Emperor
Akbar. Delhi once more fell into decay, deserted
in favour of Agra. Shah Jehan, his son, however,
rebuilt it, almost in its present form.

Later on we find civil wars breaking out, and
Hindu chiefs sacking Delhi. Then followed the
invasion of the Persians and a terrible massacre. Civil
wars ran rife. Finally we find the Hindus being over-
thrown by the English under the walls of Delhi, and
Lord Lake in 1803 undertaking to protect the king.

From that time until the Mutiny it was a case of
<c protection " — an illustration of the way England won
India, at the point of the sword, but with the help
of the native tribes and native princes themselves, to
whom she became a necessity, without whom the
natives could no longer maintain their position, on

Snakes. — Delhi 319

whom they came thankfully to depend, and whose
aims and aspirations are growing their own. Consider,
compared with any city in Europe, the life which Delhi
has seen ; its ancient history is even more interesting
than its Mutiny history.

Meanwhile we were nearing the Kutab Minar ; our
driver now and then pointed out the tomb of some
minister or other, a star in one of the ancient dynasties
who had built his memorial. Sometimes it was but
half finished ; always it was overgrown and uncared
for, but preserved more or Jess intact from past ages
in a climate which has little effect upon the solid
masonry of the ancients. At last we drew up close
to the Kutab : actually a ddk bungalow in sight. We
ordered tiffin under the trees.

To begin with, we visited Kutab-ud-dln's ruined
mosque, and even now we could trace the old Hindu
remains below it, and forming part of it, showing the use
the Mohammedan conqueror had made of a Buddhist
temple. He must have built a magnificent mosque,
for it had covered evidently an enormous acreage. In
the courtyard outside is the curious carved metal pillar
with the Sanscrit inscription ; very little is known
about the pillar, which has been put down as wrought
iron, but is actually an alloy. Last, and best of all,
was the Kutab itself.

The two others proceeded to ascend it by a spiral
staircase which runs from top to bottom ; now and then
they came out on to a balcony and rested. I forget its
actual height and number of steps. At last two little

320 A Sportswoman in India

figures were silhouetted against the sky, waving pocket-
handkerchiefs the size of postage stamps. The Kutab
is in shape like a stalk of asparagus standing up on
its thick end. It is a wonderful architectural feat as
regards its height, its red sandstone is fantastically
carved and moulded, and it stands up proudly against
the sky, to be seen all over the country. As to its
meaning, it is said to have been built by Kutab-ud-dln
in order that he might worship the rising sun from its
summit ; it had once an ornamental top, but now
there is only a railing round it.

It was a very hot day, and we had a warm drive
on to the ruined and deserted city which the house
of Taghlak built (one of the many deserted cities).
It was an interesting but a sad and dreary sight.
The country round was barer than ever, rocks and
sand and stone as far as the eye could see ; and there,
in the middle of it all, this lonely city wall, no living
creature near it, left as though some plague had fallen
upon the city, and every inhabitant had deserted it.
Through the sun-smitten, broad stone wall, which hid
everything within it completely, we climbed by means
of a breach and an old gateway, and there, as we stood
inside it, lay before us the embodiment of desolation.

Streets were still visible and the remains of houses.
Stone is too common, I suppose, for its removal else-
where to be worth while. The sun glared down
upon the broken walls and beat off the great blocks
of sandstone. Here were gateways ; there was a
courtyard ; there again the dome of a mosque. Eight

JBH*

Snakes* — Delhi 321

hundred years have come and gone since a throng
of natives gave life and colour to this deathly silent
spot, and yet there are their very doorsteps, window-
ledges, and pavements where they lay and smoked
their hookahs. It might have been eight months
since the city was alive, instead of eight centuries.

One thing we were careful of, and that was snakes.
These stones were just the most likely places, hot in
the sun, but with cool, dark holes, winding retreats,
and comfortable cracks. We did not, therefore, prod
among the ruins, but leaving the silent city of deso-
lation, we drove back by way of Humayun's tomb,
which is near the southern gate of the present Delhi.

It was here that the last Mogul, the old king, took
refuge when he fled from the palace after Delhi was
assaulted and taken by the British. It was upon
the steps of this tomb that the next day Major
Hodson, in search of the two princes, found them
and shot them, with his own hand. Hodson has
been blamed for the act. Lord Roberts said : " My
own feeling on the subject is one of sorrow that such
a brilliant soldier should have laid himself open to
so much adverse criticism. Moreover, I do not think
that, under any circumstances, he should have done
the deed himself, or ordered it to be done in that
summary manner, unless there had been evident signs
of an attempt at a rescue/*

On the other hand, it must be remembered that
Major Hodson was outside the city, with a small
body of horse, in a country swarming with enemies.

21

322 A Sportswoman in India

The two princes had spared neither men, women,
nor children in Delhi at the time the Mutiny broke
out. They had helped to capture about fifty Euro-
peans and Eurasians, nearly all females, who were
trying to escape from the city on that fatal morning.
For fifteen days these Englishwomen were confined
in the palace in a stifling chamber, they were then
brought out and massacred in the courtyard.

Should the two ringleaders place in further jeopardy
more lives ? Hodson took the bull by the horns,
and the mutineers, half ready to make a stand round
their two princes, fell back terror-stricken at the sight
of his smoking revolver and the two prostrate bodies.

Humayun's tomb is very like the tombs of all
Oriental magnates — very large, very cool, and very
dark. It was covered by the usual immense dome ;
it was floored and lined, also as usual, with marble.
In the dim light in the centre, exactly beneath the
centre of the dome, stood the marble sarcophagus,
in which lies all that remains of Akbar's father. An
old man (there is always an old man), though the
tomb was open and any one could enter it, took us
inside, and afterwards prostrated himself before us
for small coin. Around the tomb was the usual
garden, but other building of any sort there was
none. They stand strangely alone, these silent, monu-
mental cairns.

Our stay in Delhi was but short, and on the
following morning we railed down south en route for
Ootacamund.

CHAPTER X

OOTACAMUND AND ANGLO-INDIAN LIFE

From Delhi to Ootacamund— The Nilgiri Hills-
Tropical Vegetation— The Todas— Anglo-Indian
Life— Reasons why Natives so Impoverished
though India Itself Wealthy Country.

323

CHAPTER X

OOTACAMUND AND ANGLO-INDIAN LIFE

Grey dusk behind the tamarisks — the parrots fly together—

As the sun is sinking slowly over Home :
And his last ray seems to mock us, shackled in a lifelong tether

That drags us back howe'er so far we roam.
Hard her service, poor her payment — she in ancient tattered raiment —

India, she the grim stepmother of our kind.
If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter,

The door is shut — we may not look behind.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

THIS, I am afraid, is about to be a dull chapter.
I must ask my readers' kind patience while I
first of all describe Ootacamund, the finest hill station
in India ; then secondly, sketch briefly ordinary Indian
life down in the plains ; and conclude with a short
discussion upon the question why, in a country of such
natural wealth as India, the lower classes should have
lived for the last four thousand years in a state of
sheer ignorance and poverty.

It is a far cry from Delhi to Ootacamund, and we
were five consecutive nights rattling down there in the
train, and four long, weary days. Fain would we
forget the hurried meals at the railway stations, either
all crammed into a few hours or else with gaps of

325

326 A Sportswoman in India

three-quarters of the day between. There is no
choice. What outrage to the digestion ! How the
twelfth repetition of curried chicken becomes like a
quail to an Israelite ! Such are the joys of travelling !

The days themselves passed more quickly than
might be expected ; it was intensely hot, and the best
thing to be done was — nothing ; to lie on the dusty
seats with the sun-blinds down to keep out the glare, to
pretend to read and not to sleep, lulled by the jolting
of the train, to drink an occasional generous cup of
hot tea, " which saves the veins of the neck from
swelling inopportunely on a warm night."

We stopped long enough at one junction to have a
hot bath — a bright spot in those five days. The nights
were fairly cool and endurable, but for the mosquitos.
Who ever appreciated that exasperating sing-song in a
minor key ? The mosquito who comes to bite you,
and bites you without more ado, is not so execrable as
the mosquito who comes to bite you and keeps you
waiting while it sings its Nunc Dimittis.

The country we passed was at first singularly un-
interesting ; then came the Deccan, and it grew,
especially in the evenings, almost beautiful. The
weird-shaped, volcanic-looking hills were flushed with
rose-colour, the wet rice fields steamed, the tall palms
nodded like funeral plumes against the sunset.
Farther south the train ran along through fields of rice,
high, waving crops of sugar-cane and castor-oil, thickets
of copper-coloured croton, clumps of large feathered
bamboos, groves of little feathered tamarinds, gold-

AN AWKWARD CORNER. [Page 326.

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 327

dropping laburnums, forests of cocoanut and palmyra
trees.

Now and again we crossed the sandy bed of a great
river, miles upon miles of sand, and somewhere in the
centre of it all a little rill of water. It was hard to
conceive the contrast when the rains should come, and
in a few hours the rill be changed to a roaring torrent,
and the roaring torrent to a yeasty flood, crawling,
hissing, over the thirsty sand, swelling and whitening
from far bank to far bank, preceded by a wall of
chocolate-coloured water, and at last, freed from all
guide-lines, spreading in a mad tumult, like a sea, to
the horizon.

At 5 a.m. on the fifth day we arrived, masked in
dust from head to foot, at the station of Mettapollium,
which must in April, I should think, be one of the
hottest places in the world. The tongas awaiting us
were at last packed, and, thankful to leave our two
reserved compartments, we rattled off on a thirty-two-
mile drive up to Ootacamund.

To begin with, the road was level and the heat
stifling ; but it was not a dry heat, which accounted
for the wonder of vegetation. Words fail me to
describe the scenery at the foot of the Nilgiri Hills, up
which we began to climb. Nature had indeed run
riot ; heat and humidity had stimulated the soil into
an extraordinary activity, resulting in dense forests,
stupendous undergrowth, marvellous insects, and in-
numerable parasites and reptiles.

The air was still and heavy with perfume and

328 A Sportswoman in India

throbbing, passionate, tropical life ; the silence was
unbroken except for the screech of the parrots, or
the crashing of a troop of monkeys among the branches.
Soft, plumy groves of palms, tall cocoanuts, areca-nuts,
sagos, every variety of fruit-bearing tree, luxuriated ;
the pepper-vine clung to the huge timber trees among
ropes of rattan, and almost every bough was wreathed
in creepers of purple and blue, yellow and white.
Thick fronds of fern, masses of strange foliage, formed
a dense undergrowth, while the whole scene weltered
in a haze of glowing, bizarre colour, shed from
gorgeous orchids above and around.

Marvellous butterflies and strange insects danced
among this triumph of vegetation. If with it all, these
glorious tropical forests had not been endowed with
the climate of a forcing-house, what an earthly paradise
would they not be ! As it is, their very beauty is
violent, and the analogy follows that their drawbacks
are exaggerated too.

The great gouts of thunderous, tropical rain strike
the broad, receptive surface of the huge, fleshy leaves
with almost a shriek^ which can be heard some distance
off The insects and reptiles are awe-inspiring ; the
natives talk of an eight-foot, four-foot, and six-foot
snake, nor do they refer to the length of the beast
— but to the distance any unfortunate person bitten
by that particular snake can walk before he drops
down dead.

Tavernier tells us that in old days these dense
forests were inhabited by innumerable wild beasts and

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 329

monkeys ; and in classic Indian times the monkeys
on one side of the road were so hostile to those upon
the other side, that none would venture to pass from
one to the other without a risk of being strangled.

It is only natural among such scenery to find the
inhabitants overawed by Nature, ignorant, superstitious,
their religion inspired by terror, their imaginations
inflamed by vague and uncontrolled impulses. There
were temples everywhere : the tall towers of Siva,
" the god of the sensuous fire that folds all Nature
in forms divine " ; and of Vishnu ; most of all we
came across the gods of the ignorant masses, images
of demons, snakes, horses, elephants, distorted
horrors, —

This I saw when the rites were done,
And the lamps were dead, and the gods alone,
And the grey snake coiled on the altar stone,
Ere I fled from a fear that I could not see,
And the gods of the East made mouths at me.

On other little wayside shrines were strewn rose-
leaves ; sometimes the marble was stained with goats'
and cocks' blood ; look where you would there was
rank superstition, —

The nations have builded them temples, and in them have

imaged their gods,
Of the temples, the nature around them has fashioned and

moulded the plan,
And the gods take their life and their being from the visions

and longings of man.

The road soon began to wind upwards ; we crossed

33° A Sportswoman in India

a river, fed by ice-cold mountain torrents, flowing down
into the plains. Driving along through the chequered
shade, the scenery grew grander as the road wound
higher ; the great gorges, clothed with wood, glistened
here and there with little waterfalls ; clumps of
gigantic tree-ferns and the crimson flowers of the
wild rhododendron filled every crevice of the ravine.

With each turn of the zigzag road the air became
cooler and more invigorating, gradually the tropical
nature of the country was entirely lost, until we could
almost imagine ourselves among the mountains and
hills of Cumberland and Westmorland. Instead of
palms and bamboos there were pines and firs, roses
and honeysuckle grew on the stone walls at each side
of the road, the river tumbled and foamed over its
boulders through shrubberies of wild raspberries, a
cool, fresh breeze bent the ilex woods ; nothing re-
minded one of India until one looked back, and there,
far below, in a different world, lay the plains, blinking
in the heat of noon.

Many times we changed ponies, and still steadily
climbed upwards towards the tops of the Nilgiri Hills.
At an elevation of four thousand feet the coffee planta-
tions came into sight, and terraces of neatly planted
little green bushes, with their manager's bungalow,
packing-houses, and coolie lines, covered the slopes.
At last the summit of the gorge was reached, and
we stopped at Coonoor for tiffin ; then passing the
Wellington depot, we found ourselves in an elevated,
open country, like Exmoor or the Cheviots, without

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 331

trees or bushes, but green downs on each side. Ten
miles drive, with the air getting damper and colder
every mile, mists and clouds occasionally enveloping
us, constant scuds of rain sweeping along on the breeze,
and we dropped down upon the hill station, bar none,
in all India — sheltered and wooded Ootacamund.

44 Dear old Ooty " is quite up on the tops of the
Nilgiris, in the centre of a plateau many hundreds of
square miles in size, where a pack of hounds may be
kept, where one can go out on long shooting ex-
peditions into the wildest of jungle, and where one
might gallop on for hours on end over sound turf,
or picnic at some fresh place every day in the
week.

Ooty nestles picturesquely round a calm, shining
lake, among the slopes of a country like the Sussex
Downs ; till a sharp-peaked mountain in the distance
recalls the Highlands. 'Try to believe you are in India.
It is difficult. The cold, bracing air sweeps over the
charming landscape of downs and woods, and you
feel it is very good to be up in this cloudland, seven
thousand feet above the sweltering plains.

We drove to Woodside. Each bungalow in Ooty
seemed to lie in a hill of its own, distinctly private, its
own green tennis lawns, its own pine and eucalyptus
groves, its marvellous flowers. Every ditch and
marshy spot was filled with rank clumps of arum
lilies, thrusting their great, snowy flowers up to the
heavens ; the very hedges were made of scarlet
geraniums and of heliotrope ; the whole of Ooty smelt

33 2 A Sportswoman in India

like one vast cherry-pie blended with essence of violets ;
roses, dahlias, fuchsias, camellias, orchids — nothing in
the world in the way of a plant but would grow in
glory there.

The ever-varying and never-ending bowers recalled
Tennyson's lines, —

Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,
And bloom profuse and cedern arches
Charm.

Ootacamund ought to be a first-rate place for sport ;
and while there is none of the " horrid grind " of life
in the plains, yet it need not be, as in most hill
stations, equally divided between a dawdle and a
doze.

There is hunting : the sholas (rocky ravine and
jungle on the edge of the downs) are hard to draw,
impossible for horses to get through, consequently
half the pack may be running jungle sheep and
half jackal ; but after a while a jack breaks cover,
and there is a merry ten or twenty minutes' burst
across the downs to a neighbouring shola, with lots
of excitement at the boggy bottoms between the
hills — pitfalls to the unwary who do not know the
country. It takes a fast horse to get up and down
the hills with hounds.

As for shooting, the sholas hold sambur, spotted
deer, pig, black buck, cheetah, and bison, and even
tigers have been killed close to the station ; but

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 333

it is much in the hands of the planters, who always
get the khubr before any one else, and the ordinary
visitor must go farther afield, in the Kundah. The
tea and coffee planters are a great set in Ooty ;
two hundred coffee estates are open now, valued at
something like a million sterling, and employing
thirteen thousand labourers. The life is one of ups
and downs, but pays under careful management.

Coupled with the name of the Nilgiri Hills is
the far-famed race of Todas — the aborigines. Whence
they came or whither wending no man can tell ;
but they are totally dissimilar in all respects, physical
and moral, to the rest of the races of India. Their
origin is said to be Jewish, also Greek, also Arabic,
also Italian — opinions differ ; but there they are to
this day, herdsmen, still considering themselves
lords of the manor on the Blue Mountains, and
their claims upheld by British rule.

They are a striking race, tall and athletic, with
fair, pale complexions and masses of black hair,
in men and women alike hanging down upon their
shoulders. Their dress is quite peculiar, and consists
for one and all of a single woollen mantle wrapped
round them, once white ; as, like its owners, it is
never washed, it assumes a dun-coloured hue. I
walked out from Ootacamund one afternoon on
purpose to see this interesting race.

A few miles brought us to a sheltered spot among
the downs, backed by a shola, which held a mand
or Toda settlement. Down upon the grass were

334 A Sportswoman in India

built three or four oval-shaped huts, without stick or
garden round them ; a Toda or two sat on the turf
on their haunches and on a big rock close by. The
huts were innocent of windows or of proper doors,
and the only way in or out was by a square hole,
not quite a yard high, cut in the front of each hut
and closed from the inside by a solid, sliding block
of wood. It was a hands-and-knees business to
get in.

The pale faces, blue eyes, and black, waving hair
rather suggested Greeks ; then again the hooked noses
and retreating foreheads looked more like a degraded
Jewish type. We could not get much out of them,
though they took small coin with avidity. One hut,
looking empty, I boldly ventured inside, crawling
gingerly through the doorway. Standing up and
seeing as best one could by the feeble light, there
seemed to be nothing at all except a raised platform
or sleeping-place, covered with buffalo skins and a
coarse mat or two ; it looked filthily dirty. There
was a fireplace with a stone slab upon which to cook,
but no chimney ; the reed and rattan roof arched over
our heads. I looked round for pots or pans of any
sort, and other interesting relics, but nothing of the
kind was forthcoming.

Todas are evidently dirty and indolent ; cattle-herding
and dairy work their only occupation. We came across
large herds of buffaloes under the perfect control of
one boy. Each cluster of huts has its own dairy,
which was evidently looked upon as the temple of the

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 335

settlement, where buffaloes were objects of worship,
and a deity called "the Hunting God." Todas believe
that after death the soul goes to Oru-now, " the great
or other country/' and they are full of superstitions.
Polyandry is practised, a woman marrying all the
brothers of a family. It is an interesting race, but
rapidly becoming extinct ; milks, curds, ghee (rancid
butter) and a few grains, scarcely constitute a stimula-
ting diet calculated to produce a thriving population.

None of the many cairns found on the Nilgiris and
opened by indefatigable archaeologists have produced
more than funeral urns, vases of burnt bones, weapons
and images. So the veil is unlifted from Toda history.
They themselves say that their ancestors were Autoch-
thones.

The history of the Blue Mountains is only one of
raids by various chiefs from the plains, who controlled
and taxed the hill tribes for a time. The first English-
men to explore them were Mr. Keys and Mr.
MacMahon of the Survey Department ; they were
enchanted at the climate and the beauty of the table-
land. Following them, in 1821, a collector built the
first English house on the plateau, and suggested the
Nilgiris to Government as a much-needed sanatorium.
Such was the birth of Ooty, now the headquarters
of the Madras Government for six months, and the
headquarters of the Madras army and Commander-
in-Chief throughout the year.

In May and June there is a constant round of balls,
theatricals, dinners, races, gymkhanas, polo, tennis,

336 A Sportswoman in India

cricket, etc., but people may live as quietly as they
please, giving themselves up to an outdoor life of
hunting, shooting, and fishing.

Life at Ootacamund is not a study of Anglo-Indian
life ; a truer example is met with down in the plains
in an ordinary military station.

There one is struck first of all with the deadly
monotony of the place : why were all the roads ruled
with such withering precision and with such ultra-
correct angles?

Cantonments must have come into being upon the
face of an open, empty plain, planned purely on
utilitarian lines as opposed to the beautiful. But
the art of warfare is not a beautiful one — it is only
useful from a barbarous point of view ; consequently,
in the nature of things a military station should be
a cut-and-dried settlement. Not only are the roads
cruelly straight and far removed from " the galloping
track " loved of wayward nature, but " the walrus and
the carpenter" would have broken their hearts over
the sand and dust.

An eminent general once asserted that could all
sand and dust, which, in his opinion, were the great
agents in breeding and disseminating fever and other
germs, be swept from the face of cantonments, Tommy
Atkins would be another lad. Quite so. And if the
clouds were invaded in balloons and stirred up to rain
at convenient periods . . . and if wishes were horses
. . . Unfortunately, the world is worked on a present
tense, not a subjunctive mood, system.

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 337

" The white dust in the highways and the stenches
in the byways " are a very present evil ; with the
flies, mosquitos, weary heat, and endless glare, they
swell the items in the long bill which the white man
pays for serving his grim step-mother country.

Life in the jerry-built, ramshackle bungalows on
either side of the road must be looked upon as more
or less of a picnic : doors do not fit, but curtains
generally supply their places ; not two of the creaking
cane-chairs, upholstered in faded cretonnes, match one
another ; the uneven floors are hidden by an assort-
ment of jail-made, striped rugs ; glass-studded p h ulkaris
nailed upon the walls apologise for the absence of
wall-papers, and hide the stained and peeling white-
wash.

The rooms are invariably dark, and almost always
bristle with a hundred terrible little Indian, Kashmir,
and Burmese tables, stools, and screens. Wherever
a screen or a stool or a table affords standing-room,
there will be found, in uniform, on horseback, in
ball-gown, a thousand family photographs, also Indian
silver, also curiosities from the bazaar. Strewn
draperies obstruct progress as effectually as barbed
wire. Light in the bedrooms, by-the-bye, is so
arranged that, as a rule, no woman of high ideals sees
to do her hair properly from the time she sets foot
in an Indian bungalow to the time she leaves it.

Now a great deal of rubbish has been written about
the mem-sahib. A beautiful, weary figure lounges
through tradition, clothed in Indian shawls and bangles.

22

33 8 A Sportswoman in India

From her sofa, when she drops her handkerchief, she
murmurs, " Boy." An old, wizened man, in answer
to the listless whisper, creeps noiselessly in, restores
the fallen property, vanishes more softly than any
cat, and resumes his cross-legged attitude in the
verandah, to await the next summons. Nature, " so
careless of the type," has allowed this species to
lapse, together with the old Qjui hai — Jos Sedley —
curry-and-cheroots — dyspepsia-and-liver individual.

The mem-sahib of the nineteenth century is an
energetic, tennis, Badminton, calling and riding —
sometimes sporting — creation. She has a plethora of
books from the club, but there is not time, or it is
too hot, to read much ; besides, she lives beneath the
curse of chits.

As native servants are incapable of delivering a
message, and would turn every politesse into an insult,
inquiries and replies must be written. These incessant
chits arrive from daybreak to bedtime ; eventually the
habit of sending them becomes a disease.

I, myself, a visitor in the place, am deluged with
chits from certain kind ladies in the station, who write
" how sorry they are not to have been able to call
at present, that I must have wondered at it, and
thought" etc., etc. Now I never "think."

The rulers of Ind are to be met with high up
in the precedence list.

Who are the rulers of Ind ? to whom shall we bow the knee ?
Make thy peace with the women, and the men shall make
thee L. G.

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 339

Few and far between there are to be found women
who will make a big splash in the future, who have
started circles in quiet tarns which are widening still.

To affect deep interest in things native is incorrect.
A lady was asked what she had seen of the people since
she came out. " Oh ! nothing," said she. " Thank
goodness, I know nothing at all about them, and don't
wish to ; really, I think the less one sees and knows
about them the better. As for Hindustani, I should
never dream of trying to learn it ! "

India is the paradise, neither of young girls nor
married women, but of the middle-aged man. London
to women, Paris to girls, fling open the golden gates ;
but in India it is the middle-aged man who wears
the crown.

Penniless youth, making or marring its fortune,
is little accounted of; the omnipotent god in India
is the everlasting rupee, and by their rupees ye shall
know them (or not know them). At the age of forty
or thereabouts it is " high in the service" or, " has had
raf id promotion" ; such a thing as u the wrong side of
forty " is not breathed. It is then that Society beckons
and hails the fortunate individual as a " young man,"
and invitations to dinners and moonlight picnics
positively romp in.

A couplet runs, —

It is not wealth, nor rank, nor state,
But get-up-and-git that makes men great.

But greatness in India depends upon one book — a

34° A Sportswoman in India

book wherein every man's pay, age, and position are
printed ; by this book each individual stands or falls.
It is the cookery-book of that supreme chef, Society ,
whereby she fakes her dishes, and judges whether it
be possible to introduce the person of that ordinary
little vegetable the wife of Lieutenant Jones, drawing

only rupees a month, into the same dinner-party

which includes such a recherche savoury as Sir Roebuck
Robinson, K. C.S.I.

Whether any one really cares a fig for the Society
before whose shrine they lay their lives is a moot
point. Consider the clubs and their paralysing ennui ;
consider the horror of meeting the selfsame people
every day, riding with them before breakfast, finding
them at the polo-ground in the afternoon, discussing
together the same tea and cakes, the same gossip, the
same tennis and Badminton ; when it grows dark
the same drive to the same club-rooms, the same
newspapers, the same liqueurs ; last of all, a dinner
party at a neighbouring bungalow with the same guests,
the same courses, and as a climax, the same lady first
met with on horseback in the early dawn, and with
whom the polite usages of Society decree that the
running must now be made. No wonder that there
is no such thing as conversation ; that the sickening
monotony of it begets tempers, spite, gossip ; that
the appearance of a new hat or frock is welcomed
as a fresh topic.

But what else is to be done ? Not sit in a dark
bungalow all day? not drive the eternal round of

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 34 l

the straight, dusty roads ? At least Society is re-
freshingly open and naive : every one knows that
Captain Tompkins is head over ears in love with
Miss Jimmy, and Mr. Golightly with Miss Fortescue,
and that neither of them possess anything but debts.
Miss Jimmy's parents require her presence at home ;
Miss Fortescue's papa is sent for to Simla, and departs
en f ami lie. There is a tacit understanding throughout
the station to, —

Beware the man who's crossed in love,
For pent-up stream must find its vent ;

Step back when he is on the move,
And lend him half the continent.

If it were possible to visit and help the poor in
India, organising work and recreation for them ; if
bungalows were homes to live in, instead of lodgings
to be left in a year or so when the owners should
be ordered elsewhere ; if gardening were a case of
anything except sowing and planting for an unknown
successor ; if there were good concerts, good picture-
galleries, good theatres, good Church services, good
lectures to attend ; and if the climate were less ener-
vating, women would do more than fritter time away.
There are none of these things. A dearth of mental
food, second-rate parsons, amateur art in all its
branches, form a sickly substitute.

I once met some very pious children born of English
parents high up in the Civil Service. They came to
tea, after which my hostess unearthed seductive picture-
books. " No," said the little boy — " no ; we would

342 A Sportswoman in India

rather have a Bible." Unfortunately, there was none
in the room ; however, a Prayer Book was presented
to them to keep them quiet.

Our tea party was soon interrupted by the little boy,
who read aloud in stentorian tones the Lord's Prayer.
"Kneel down/* he said reprovingly to his sister,
proceeding with the Confession, which he begged us
to repeat after him. But mine hostess had borne
enough, and she removed the pair — though, to do
them justice, they were perfectly serious and reverent.

Later on the little boy had some chicken for supper.
c< Oh, mother," he said, c< what a beautiful grave this
chicken will have ! " " Where ? " « In my body."
I asked the little girl where her other brothers were.
" Tom's at school, and Arthur's in Paradise ; he's flying
about with wings like a vulture."

It is a vast mistake to imagine that Society in India
has a whit deeper shades than London Society. Life in
India, lived in the light of a thousand eyes, is above-
board ; London is a well-arranged kala jagah (dark
corner), and the play is conducted under the rose.

In trifling matters, such as women indulging in
cigarettes, a practice as harmless as it is common, no
Anglo-Indian would think it worth while to utter the
sentiment of a certain lady in town : " As I am neither
fast nor fashionable^ I do not smoke" Foreigners must
be amused at our insular prejudices in this case —
against a digestive and a sedative, which conduces to
a quiet half-hour, and is therefore worth encouraging
in an age of which it is complained that life moves too

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 343

fast. When the Albert Docks are left behind, and
faces turn eastwards, some of the old shackles drop off,
and a more simple and independent spirit takes the
place of the false and conventional one.

However, to return to the Sunshiny Land. Recog-
nised as full of mysticism and superstition, one meets
with incidents which are inexplicable.

The following account is perfectly true. My friend
Mrs. 1'E. was dressing one night for dinner, and
saw reflected in her looking-glass the figure of an ayah
standing with a note in her hand.

" What do you want ? Is that note for me ? " There
was no answer. Mrs. 1'E. turned round and looked
at the figure, which without speaking retired from the
room, through the curtain. Seeing that it was not
her own ayah, no doubt the woman belonged next
door, and a native's conduct is often inexplicable ;
but Mrs. 1'E. could not quite understand why none of
her own servants had seen the woman ; they denied
all knowledge of her.

Mrs. 1'E. demanded an explanation from her
neighbour, whom she met at dinner that evening.
" Why," exclaimed the lady, " you've seen the
ghost ! " She went on to say that an old tale belonged
to the bungalow of its being haunted by the figure of
an ayah carrying a note.

On several occasions afterwards Mrs. I'E.'s little
boy called to her from his bed, " Mother, do send away
that ayah standing by the door ! " Colonel 1'E. also
saw her once, again with a note, and again she vanished.

344 A Sportswoman in India

The Psychcological Society took the matter up, and it
was established as a fact that a figure had appeared to
certain people without their having foreknowledge of
the same.

A word now about natives. Lay to heart that—

It is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan

brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles, and he wears the

Christian down ;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the end

of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, " A fool lies here who tried to hustle the

East."

It tires one to see the fixedness, the apathy, the
lifelessness, of a great population which should by rights
be up and stirring, trading and organising. There is a
strange mingling in the Oriental of impassiveness and
childishness, of fierce passions and primitive ideas ;
there is also in him an entire lack of truthfulness.

I met a lady who had been carried up to the hills
part of the way in a dhoolie. The natives who were
carrying her, finding themselves alone with her, stopped
and put her down in the middle of a wild scrub
country, making her understand with gesticulations of
horror that a tiger was coming, but that they would
brave all danger and boldly carry her on for more
money.

Alive to the native nature, she said quietly, " Let the
tiger come" and lay comfortably back in her dhoolie.
The servants disappeared, and she was left entirely

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 345

alone. Whatever her feelings were, she showed a
supremely indifferent front, and after about an hour
the men reappeared, and without further explanation
picked her up and went on.

Another time, however, in a bullock-cart with her
ayah, on the banks of a river too flooded to cross late
at night, she really was abandoned by her native
servants, and fierce-looking Pathans, armed with knives
and matchlocks, came down upon the bullock-cart.
The ayah behaved manfully, spending the night
walking round and round the cart, and waving off the
ruffians angrily as they peered curiously inside, till in
the morning the servants reappeared.

Every creature in India appears to be eaten up
with laziness ; even my pony pretends she is too fine
to switch off her own flies with her own long tail,
and turns her head round to order her syce to flip
them away.

Captain shoots a Monal pheasant out in

camp, and tells his "boy" to look after it, as he
wants its skin. Of course the " boy " leaves it out in
the sun all day. When we return at night the bird is
useless. We spend the evening rocking with laughter

at the sight of Captain rushing round and round

the tents, clutching the pheasant by the neck, the
boy fleeing before him, and being hit over the head
with the pheasant's body whenever opportunity affords.

I remember an old Colonel's exasperation over
natives in general. He said : " I asked in the club
for brandy one evening. A fellow brought me every

346 A Sportswoman in India

conceivable liqueur under the sun, one after another,
in spite of my repeating ( Brandy ! ' every time.
My temper rose. I explained volubly. The man
disappeared ; reappeared. I saw him coming up the
room, and on a tray a bottle — labelled cherry brandy.
He advanced upon his doom, walked into the jaws
of death all unconsciously. ... It was a case of boot
and broken bottle.

" I remember up in King's office one day a native
spat on my wife's dress — a dirty little beast with
nothing on but a pair of blue cotton trousers.
Think of it ! on a nice muslin frock. I pommelled
him in the face till I was sick of it. He went down-
stairs ; it was a sight to see those blue trousers move —
there was no after-thought. He was like a dog
who's had a stable-brush thrown at him."

Natives are exceedingly practical. A sahib accidentally
shot a boy one day when he was out in the jungle.
The next morning he received a deputation from the
man's relatives, who handed him a written document
in the form of a valuation of the deceased's life,
soliciting payment for the same, to which was appended
a receipt for the amount demanded. It ran in this
form :

To CAPTAIN F.

To one bloody murder committed. Five Rupees.
Contents received on the day of , 1 8

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 347

Visits from natives are rather a trial. Well-to-do
tradesmen would call upon Commissioners. The inter
views I was present at were rather in this style :

Native: "Salaam! Great Chief."

Englishman : " Salaam."

Native: "Your Excellency is my father and
mother."

Englishman : " I am obliged to you."

Native : " Your Excellency, I have come to behold
your face."

Englishman: "Thank you. Have you anything
more to say to me ? "

Native : « Nothing, Great Chief."

Englishman : " Neither have I anything to say.
So good-morning. Enough for to-day."

Native : " Enough. Good-morning, your Excel-
lency. Salaam! Great Chief."

India is a land of the contretemps ; few sojourners
out there have met with none. Now the following
happened to a young couple I met, in Government
Service.

They had been sent upon an expedition to find
dacoitsy who had been making disturbances ; were camp-
ing out, and had sent on all extra luggage to a small
military station which they expected to reach next day.
Through the night a lamp burnt in the tent ; their
clothes lay on chairs. On getting up the next morning,
where in the name of fortune were those same clothes ?
The young pair each taxed the other with having played
a stupid joke. It became exasperating. The servants

348 A Sportswoman in India

knew nothing whatever of them ; they had vanished.
Next morning two weird figures, wrapped in a pair of
sheets and a couple of coloured blankets, were reported

to have arisen on the astonished horizon of station,

to have dropped off their ponies and slunk into the
ddk bungalow ; while a dacoit roamed the country in
a pair of corsets, some embroidered silk stockings, and
a gentleman's tie.
Was this in —

The State of Kot-Kumharsen where the wild dacoits abound ?

And the Thakurs live in castles on the hills?
Where the bunnia and bunjara in alternate streaks are found,

And the Rajah cannot liquidate his bills ?
Where the agent Sahib Bahadur shoots the black buck for his

larder,

From a tonga which he uses as machanl
'Twas a white man from the west came expressly to invest-
igate the natural wealth of Hindustan.

The question is worth asking, why in a country of
such natural wealth as India the lower classes should
wallow in ignorance, degradation, and poverty ? The
reasons — to go the root of the matter — are twofold :
the climate, and the fertility of the soil. A hot
climate incapacitates men for arduous work, and
enforces a food which requires little labour. A fertile
soil will grow rice and return an average of at least
fifty-fold.

Abundant food means an abundant population ; an
abundant population means abundant labour ; and
abundant labour means low wages. If wages are low
and the labouring class wretchedly poor, it follows that

THE AUTHOR.

[Page 348.

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 349

the leisured class must be proportionately rich, because
wealth can only be divided between those who labour
and those who do not.

To look only at the vast and costly remains of the
ancient buildings in India is to see into what degrada-
tion the lower classes had fallen. The Taj, for ex-
ample, employed twenty thousand workmen every day
for twenty-two years before it was finished — a mere
tomb for a king's wife — the cost of which no wealth
could have met had the labourers been fairly paid.
Meanwhile, the upper classes were rolling in unlimited
wealth and ostentatious prodigality, instanced by the
old Mogul Palace in Delhi, and the treasure, amounting,
it is said, to twelve million pounds sterling, which Nadir
Shah looted from its walls.

Unequal distribution of wealth was, then, the first
great result of the cheapness and abundance of the
national food. It followed that, on the one hand,
poverty provoked contempt, and the lower classes
were condemned by the physical laws of their climate
to a degradation from which they have never escaped ;
while, on the other hand, wealth produced power, and
bred luxury, intoleration, and despotism.

The great body of the people derived no benefits
from the national improvements ; hence, the basis of
the progress being narrow, the progress itself was in-
secure, and when a race of kings died out, the nation
could not reconstruct itself ; unfavourable circum-
stances arising from without, as a matter of course the
whole system fell.

35° A Sportswoman in India

Even before their invasion the old civilisations
decayed ; their conquest was easy by reason of their
decay. Records in India two and three thousand years
old point back to a state of things similar to the
present day. Then, as now, wages were low, and
interest and rent were high. Nine hundred years
before Christ the lowest legal interest was 15 per
cent., the highest 60 per cent. In the present
century it varies from 36 to 60 per cent.

Then as regards rent. In England and Scotland
the cultivator pays, in round numbers, for the use of
the land about one-fourth of the gross produce ; in
France it is about one-third ; but in India it is
estimated at one-half. If interest, rent, and profits
(which vary according to the rate of interest and rent)
are high, it follows that wages must be low, wages
being the residue left to the labourers out of the
wealth of a country, after interest, rent, and profits
have been paid.

Physical causes have not only governed the distri-
bution of wealth in India, they have governed the
intelligence of her people. In Europe the tendency
of advancing civilisation has been, in continual con-
tention with the difficulties of a colder climate, to
develop the reasoning faculties of the inhabitants.
Their imaginative powers have been allowed little
scope.

But in the East the reverse is the case : the imagina-
tion of the Oriental tramples on his reason, and is
continually stimulated by physical agents, in the shape

Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 351

of tempest, earthquake, famine, pestilence, devastations
of wild animals, interminable jungle, impassable rivers,
terrible heat, and sudden death.

The ancient literature of India -is a tissue of ex-
aggerated tradition, glowing and poetical, but purely
imaginative as opposed to reasonable. The mytho-
logy of India is based upon terror ; rank superstition
stands in the path of civilisation and progress ; the
rights and dignity of woman are utterly ignored ; life
is of little value ; bloody human sacrifice has been
rife ; there is no comprehension of such a virtue as
truth.

How is it that civilisation — in Europe, as far as
analogy can guide us, seemingly unlimited — should in
this old world have been so long apparently stationary ?
The reason lies in the fact that Nature's powers are
limited. That is to say, that physical agents come into
play before any others, and they quickly produce a
civilisation and a population, such as spread over Asia
and Egypt, long before the energy of man has turned
less favourable climates and soil to his use. But
physical agents only serve up to a certain point :
they have — in the shape of climate and soil — pro-
duced a vast population, they rule that population,
it is dependent upon them ; enslaved by reason of them,
it stands in awe of their effects.

On the other hand, the energy of man, which has
slowly triumphed over a cold climate and scarcity of
food, only turns more and more physical powers to
his own use year after year ; there is no end to the

352 A Sportswoman in India

resources at his command. Nature is a good servant
but a bad master.

Salvation for Asia lies in the increase of know-
ledge, since " the totality of human actions are,
from the highest point of view, governed by the
totality of human knowledge" — knowledge, particu-
larly in the branch of physical science, which strikes
at the root of superstition, and induces scepticism ;
and toleration. This fact, it is reassuring to see,
is being brought home to the missionaries in India :
they are learning that religion, literature, and
legislation are but secondary agents in civilisation ;
the progress of knowledge comes first, and the
all-important possession is the number of truths which
the human intellect possesses, together with the extent
to which those truths are diffused.

Until knowledge is widespread, there will still
ring in our ears the cry of the Purdah women, there
will still rise before our eyes revolting sights, and
two hundred and eighty millions of degraded humanity
will still walk God's earth.

CHAPTER XI

FROM AN ELEPHANT KHEDDER TO A CROCODILE TANK

In Camp Again— An Elephant Khedder—* Memorable
Night — The Elephants Pass the Rubicon — Guests
of the Rajah of Mysore — Seringapatam-—
Tippoo's Summer-house — The Cholera Bungalow
— Guindy — Crocodiles —A Horrible Experience —
The Priest and the Crocodile— Crocodile Tank
at Kurachie— Native Letters.

353 23

CHAPTER XI

FROM AN ELEPHANT KHEDDER TO A
CROCODILE TANK

Elephant—
41 1 will remember what I was. I am sick of rope and chain.

I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar-cane :

I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs.

11 1 will go out until the day, until the morning break-
Out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress —
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake,
I will revisit my lost loves, and playmates masterless ! "

RUDYARD KIPLING.

When ye say to Tabaqui, " My Brother ! " when ye call the

hyena to meat,
Ye may cry the full truce with Jacala— the belly that runs on

four feet.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

I HAD always been anxious to see an elephant
khedder (an enclosure where the great game
is entrapped), and when we were in Madras some
of our party were able to avail themselves of an
opportunity which afforded itself. Out in India one
has plenty of riding upon elephants — at receptions into
native States, on shoots arranged by the Rajahs, or
on tours through the streets of native cities ; and I
often visited the battery elephants in their high, open

355

356 A Sportswoman in India

stables in the lines. Immense animals they are —
in fact, the largest living land animal, weighing as
much as three tons. The biggest elephant in Madras
to-day is owned by the commissariat stud, and stands
nine feet ten inches at the shoulder. It may be taken
as a general rule that twice round an elephant's foot
gives its height ; the circumference of the forefoot
of the average elephant is about fifty-four inches.
The renowned Jumbo stood about eleven feet two
inches, and measured five feet six inches round his
forearm, but he was an African specimen.

However, I must away to a description of one of
the most exciting scenes ever witnessed — the entrapping
of these wild monarchs of the jungle. Indian elephants
are most valuable as beasts of burden, and hundreds
of them are employed in Government service. From
time immemorial man has exercised his ingenuity
in capturing them alive, but it remained to Mr.
Sanderson to introduce into India the most successful
kind of khedder^ in connection with which his name
will ever be associated.

Mysore is not a long journey from Ootacamund,
and there our party established themselves in camp
near the village of Chamraj-Nugger, close to the
foot of the Billiga-rungun Hills. In the thick scrub
and wild jungle which clothe these heights there
were elephants in plenty, travelling about, as is their
custom, in herds, under the guidance of a single
leader, whom they implicitly follow. Should an elephant
leave the herd to which it belongs, it is not allowed

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 357

to join any other, but becomes a solitary wanderer
for the rest of its life. Soured in temper, exceedingly
ferocious, and attacking without provocation whatever
comes in its path, it is known as a rogue elephant.

At last, at daybreak one morning, the little camp
was roused to activity by a note from Captain Z. to
say that all things were ready, and that he would expect
a party of four to return with the bearer of the note,
while the rest of the camp might follow in three days
to be present at the culminating and most exciting
feature in the whole shikar.

The four select ones were soon ready to obey the
summons. It was a case of roughing it for a few
nights ; they duly prepared for the same. The limited
kit allowed to each went on ahead on coolies. The two
ladies and two men themselves rode — a long and
tiring ride, principally through jungle and by stony
beaten tracks ; but at last the rendezvous was reached ;
there stood Captain Z. in the distance, waving a
welcome.

Under the thick trees in the jungle, with a small
clearing in front, a couple of little tents had been put
up ; some yards away, up against a bank, the servants
were cooking ; a big kettle singing over the fire was
pleasantly suggestive of tea. Everybody gathered
round the camp-table beneath the shadiest tree, rugs
spread on the ground, camp-stools, and the visions of
a tray brought by the blackest Madrasi in the whitest
of white garments, composed a picture which breathed
content.

35 8 A Sportswoman in India

Meanwhile Captain Z., who had been hard at work
all day, enlarged upon the proceedings up to the
present moment. To begin with, a herd of wild
elephants had been found and located, and might be
said to be, with probable truth, within four miles of
the tea party. About four hundred natives had been
collected, and under the superintendence of Captain Z.
and two or three friends of his, the herd had been
driven into a thick patch of jungle ; by about twelve
o'clock that day they were all safely in cover.

The natives, meanwhile, had spread out into a huge
circle surrounding the herd — a circle covering five or
six miles of ground ; and about two o'clock in the
afternoon the word was passed that the herd was safely
in the centre.

Then began the very considerable task of putting up
a fence of bamboo round the whole of the circle, strong
enough to prevent the great game from breaking
through. It was no easy feat to accomplish ; there was
but an insufficient supply of tools, time was precious,
and the men had to work with their finger-nails and
pointed sticks. Captain Z. could spare only a few
moments, and tea over, he was off to see how the work
was progressing, taking his four visitors with him. A
few minutes' walk brought them to the sound of picks
and axes and much chattering, leading on to a scene
where the natives, working really hard for once in their
lives, were throwing up a bank and erecting a stockade
as though they thoroughly entered into the excitement
of the undertaking.

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 359

Indeed, there was no time to be lost ; diplomacy
and good management alone could effect the capture.
A herd of elephants needs dealing with promptly and
courageously, or disaster and failure follow. Riding
round the entire circle, Captain Z. advised his various
" aides," whom he left in command at different points,
with a certain amount of the palisade to superintend
and so many natives, who were perspiring profusely
and working like grim death. The herd in cover
could be plainly heard ; they were evidently very
uneasy and consequently noisy, the males making a
continuous thundering sound with their trumpeting.

Elephants are suspicious beasts, exceedingly shy
of anything in the way of a structure, regarding it
as a snare or pitfall of some sort. It was therefore
unnecessary to build an abnormally stiff stockade ;
though until a fair-sized fence was up round the entire
circle, it was an anxious time. However, the herd
remained singularly quiet. About 7 p.m., for those
who could spare half an hour, a sumptuous dinner
was ready in camp, to which the occupants of the two
little tents did ample justice.

The sun had set, and darkness trod upon his heels —
darkness soon to be lit up by a lurid glare for miles
around. The air by this time was beginning to be
charged with excitement. Around the whole of the
stockade, at intervals of thirty yards, bonfires were
burning, and every soul not already there was soon
in the midst of the excitement. By midnight the
welcome word was passed that the stockade was

360 A Sportswoman in India

more or less complete, and defence against possible
attack from the herd inside was now the principal
anxiety.

It is hard to depict the scene throughout that night.
Few slept ; the silent jungle was waked again by
the shouts of the excited watchers ; the glare of the
bonfires played upon the great tree trunks, making
the impenetrable shadows yet more gloomy ; the
tawny flames, crackling, and shooting up to the stars,
lit up the black figures hurrying hither and thither,
and accentuated their wild gesticulations.

In the background more watchers were waving
flaring torches and uttering weird cries ; while inside
this brilliant fringe of flame and glare and action, deep
in the heart of the black centre, the dense jungle was
resonant with the trumpeting of the giants of the
forests.

At one thrilling moment a tusker appeared, a huge
form loomed through the gloom and charged straight
at the stockade. Long before he reached it, he was
met by a tumult of cries and showers of missiles and
fire-brands ; his gleaming tusks and his height, exagger-
ated in the fitful glare, was the climax of a never-to-
be-forgotten scene. He turned and disappeared once
more into the shadow.

Those who were not actually useful went round the
circle carrying cheroots to the indefatigable watchers.
Bed was the last thing to be thought of; and the night
passed rapidly. Two other elephants threatened the
stockade on the opposite side, and their thunderous

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 361

trumpeting was incessant. There was not a moment
which was not alive with sensation.

Day broke at last — " 'Thank goodness ! " from Captain
Z. — and that so all-impressive vigil became only a
fascinating memory. Cold and grey at first, a generous
sun soon beat almost too kindly over the dead ashes of
the memorable night's orgies. How many elephants
were secured? The natives said sixty, Captain Z.
thought he had seen thirty ; the real number ultimately
turned out to be fifty-seven.

So far so good ; they were safe and sound, and would
all day probably remain invisible. The bands of
natives round the palisade continued to strengthen
and complete the bamboo fence, making themselves
little wattled booths in which alternate parties slept
and watched throughout the day. Meanwhile, a long
sleep and a late breakfast to follow was welcome to
the little party who had been overseers and spectators
since the sun set.

That afternoon saw still a lively scene and plenty
of hard work ; the palisade stood up complete and
solid, and most important of all, the khedder itself was
begun. It was four days before this last great work
was complete. At last it was ready. Picture a pound
about a hundred yards in diameter, with an opening
left on one side which faced the largest track made by
the elephants when driven into cover, palisades having
been built to guide the herd to this opening.

The pound itself was enclosed by a ditch nine feet
wide at the top, a yard wide at the bottom, and nine

362 A Sportswoman in India

feet deep ; outside the ditch a stout fence, braced and
supported, was erected, about twelve feet in height.
The opening in the khedder facing the elephant-run
was about twelve feet wide ; it had been arranged to
come just between two tree trunks, which served as
gate-posts.

The gate itself was planned like a portcullis, and
was made of three tree trunks fastened transversely,
slung by means of chains. It was hauled up to a
considerable height between the two trees, and fastened
by a rope, which was to be cut and the gate lowered
directly the herd were inside the khedder.

The evening before the eventful day Captain Z.
and his party saw most of the herd drinking in a
pool about sunset, somewhere on the outskirts of
their retreat in the cover. A most formidable battalion
they looked ; would take some tackling before all
was over ! Early morning saw all things in readiness ;
a platform had been built near the khedder, well
protected, from which standpoint people could see
the whole proceedings, and the rest of the Mysore
camp flocked in in good time.

The beat began. Four or five hundred beaters
surrounded the cover on all sides except at the
khedder, and began slowly to advance with the object
of driving the herd in that direction. They came
on with wild shouts, rattling of sticks, and beating of
toms-toms ; some sent up rockets at intervals, others
fired blank cartridges. Far away the tumult began — a
faint roar ; nearer and nearer it resounded, developing

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 363

into a grand, wild clamour reverberating through
the jungle. The air positively rocked with sound ;
above the shouts thundered the furious trumpetings
of the elephants, and the rush and tread of heavy
bodies being forced along in the direction desired.
Finally, with a crashing prelude, the whole herd, a
terrified throng, rushed into view.

At the sight of the palisade and group of on-
lookers the great beasts came to a stand — fifty-seven
of them, half-mad with terror and excitement, strong
and wild enough to have carried the whole khedder
away before them like a sheet of newspaper. On
came the beaters, redoubling their shouts, the rockets,
and the shots ; but still the herd stood immovable —
only a leader wanted, and then a desperate charge.

In the leading ranks stood a female and her calf.
At this moment the little calf sprang forward towards
the corner of the khedder where Captain Z. had taken
up his position in front of the platform, beyond the
rails. The mother, with only a thought of defend
ing her young, dashed nobly after it, and seeing her
enemies before her, she charged straight at Captain Z.

It was an alarming moment ; the beaters' lives were
worth very little purchase, to say nothing of those of
the party on the platform, if the herd stampeded, as
they were on the brink of doing, and charged after
the female. There was a loud detonation, and Captain
Z. floored her with an eight-bore Greener and ten
drams ; she fell almost at his feet. It was a sad
sight and a deplorable occurrence, but there was no

364 A Sportswoman in India

alternative. The little calf rushed off, screaming
wildly, with its tail erect and its ears distended.
One of the party gave chase, and it was secured at last
and tied up to a tree with a native's waistcloth.

Meanwhile, the herd had retreated ; the beaters,
alarmed by what had happened, were temporarily dis-
organised. However, after a short delay the herd was
again beaten out towards the gate, and forced to
proceed by blank cartridges and firebrands in the
direction of the khedder. Nearer and nearer they rush
— then stand — then rush on again — then pull up once
more. They are coming — will they, or will they
not? — it still hangs in the balance. Another ad-
vance ; there is no choice now. Hustled on by the
fifty-five behind him, the first elephant passes the
Rubicon.

Like a reservoir which has burst its dam the whole
herd leap forward in a tumult, surging through the
gate, the forlorn hope in a desperate assault. Will
they ever get through ? No ; — yes. A coolie perched
on a light branch overhead cuts the rope ; the gate
jangles down into its place ; cheer follows cheer as
fifty-six elephants are secured to the Madras Govern-
ment— a valuable prize !

Once inside, the great throng rushed wildly about
in hopes of finding a means of escape. When com-
pletely exhausted they sought the centre of the en-
closure, and there awaited motionless the progress of
events.

By-and-by several tame elephants, each ridden by

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 365

his own mahout, were marched into the khedder,
mingling freely with the wild captives, and gradually
separating them one by one from the rest of the herd,
thus enabling the noosers to slip off the tame elephants
on to the ground, and to pass ropes and chains round
the hind-legs of the captives, who are thus picketed
until they are reduced to subjection.

The process of training occupies a comparatively
short time with the sagacious co-operation of tame
elephants, These may generally be dispensed with
after two months, and the captive ridden by the mahout
alone. After three or four months he may be com-
pletely trusted — though elephants vary in temper.

Thus ended a most interesting experience ; elephants
have been friends of mine ever since.

Joe, belonging to a civilian in Madras, was extra-
ordinarily intelligent : he would draw a cork from a
bottle of claret and drink the contents without spilling
a drop. One morning he let himself in by the back
gate, warning the bungalow of his presence by trumpet-
ing. His master came out, and asked him what he
wanted. There was a pitcher at hand with a little water
in the bottom ; Joe poured it on the ground, attempt-
ing to sip with his trunk. His master gave him the
desired water, and having told him to go back, followed
to bolt the gate. But Joe had already not only shut
and bolted it, but turned the bolt in the slot. He
had a healthy appetite, and was partial to figs, palms,
bread-fruit, wood-apples, sugar-cane, pine-apples, and
water-melons. He would break a cocoanut by rolling

366 A Sportswoman in India

it under his foot. He always picked a switch with
which he kept off flies.

As long ago as the time of Pliny elephants were
observed studying their lessons ; he tells us that one
which performed badly in the day and was punished,
was observed at night endeavouring to practise its
tricks. The trainer of the Barnum herd once peeped
into the elephants' pen at night and found one of the
young ones trying to stand on his head — a lesson he
was then being taught. After several attempts he
succeeded.

The Duke of Devonshire's tame elephant used to
take a broom and sweep the garden paths and grass ;
he would also carry a great water-can and follow the
gardener round while he watered his beds.

Elephants are invaluable to the Government.
Hundreds of them are, as is well known, employed
in lumber-yards, going through a regular daily routine,
knowing their hours for work and recreation as
well as the foreman himself. At the sound of the
morning bell they leave their stalls, assemble in the
yards, and take up their work left from the day before,
rolling the great logs and carrying the beams with
their trunks to the piles, where two of them will take
up each length of wood and hoist it into its place,
walking round afterwards and adjusting the work
like a man with a plumb-line. When the bell rings
for leaving off work, nothing will induce them to go
on, and it is said that they will not be taken in by
ringing the bell late.

From Elephant Kheddcr to Crocodile Tank 367

The excitement of the khedder over, we returned
to Mysore, where we were royally entertained by
the Maharajah in the Guest House — as fine a building
as any in India. Our great bedrooms were cool and
luxurious, and a magnificent hall, furnished as a sitting-
room, one side open to the drive-up, and park and
gardens beyond, was delightful to sit in.

Our party now consisted of General Sir G. Wolseley,
Colonel Neville, Major Evelegh, Mrs. Borton, her
black poodle, Miss Caldwell, my brother, and myself ;
we had the Guest House to ourselves. The Maharajah,
a boy of thirteen, was away, but several officers and
his own English tutor had been deputed to do the
honours — most hospitable and cheery they were.

Mrs. Borton, Miss Caldwell, and myself paid a State
call upon the Maharanee, a small, dark individual with
wonderful jewels and embroidered garments ; she
talked little, and gave us each as a souvenir a small
bottle of otto of roses when we withdrew.

The palace was interesting, though French and
modern ; for example, the extraordinary collection
of clockwork toys — this included a bed which played
tunes under the mattress directly anybody lay down
on it. There was a phonograph, which repeated a
speech of Mr. Gladstone's ; and there was a truly
magnificent collection of gems and jewelry. Though
for the most part uncut, or indifferently cut, the
enormous size of the stones was staggering, and I
revere the individual intrepid enough to wear
them.

368 A Sportswoman in India

The Zoo in Mysore is worth several visits. They
had some rare animals, several fine tigers, and quite
the largest panther any of us had ever seen — a
savage brute which dashed against the iron bars
of its cage whenever one went near. Fat and
sleek, well fed, the animals were a striking contrast
to those in our own Zoo at home, where it is perhaps
expensive and difficult to provide great quantities of
their natural food, the lack of which, together with
the difference in climate, preys upon their health.

The next day, Sunday, was reserved for seeing
Seringapatam. We were up at 5.30 a.m., and after
a hurried chota hazri, started at 6 a.m. on a ten-mile
drive to one of India's oldest and most interesting cities.
The country was well cultivated and wooded, and the
River Cauvery, broken by rocks and protecting Seringa-
patam, made a memorable picture. Ramanuja, the
Vishnuite apostle of 1454, who named it the city of
Sri Ranga, or Vishnu, knew what he was about when
he selected the little island three miles long and one
mile broad, with the wide Cauvery washing round
it, and its natural rock walls — a practically impregnable
position.

Seringapatam is chiefly famous for the fortress which
figured so prominently in Indian history at the close
of the eighteenth century. Of its two last Rajahs,
Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan, Tippoo's name is familiar
to all on account of his horrible treatment of English
prisoners, his arrogance, despotism, and the slippery
character of all his dealings. At the same time, Tippoo

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 369

must have been a fine fellow to have held Seringapatam,
and three times to have sustained a siege against
English troops ; his subjects fought like the pluckiest
devils, up to the last.

The fortress must have been a hard nut to crack ;
as we stood on its ruins we were immensely struck
with its vast strength. When the river had been
crossed, the entrenchments and ramparts climbed, the
great rock and battlemented wall won, a deep moat
faced the English besiegers, inside all, before the
actual fort was reached. Across this moat there lay,
at the final storming by Lord Cornwallis and Colonel
Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, a single
plank, left there by the sheer carelessness of Tippoo's
soldiers. Over the plank the English storming party
— one man at a time — rushed, and took the fort,
with cold steel.

We saw the spot where Tippoo himself was killed
by an ordinary soldier, for the sake of a marvellous
necklace of jewels which he wore ; and we went down
into the gloomy dungeons . . . the scene of the depths
of a native's cruelty.

Having been over the ruined fort, we walked to
the Lai Bagh, or Red Garden, which belongs to the
magnificent tomb built by Tippoo Sultan over the
remains of his father, Hyder Ali, and in which Tippoo
himself was buried. A long walk, shaded by trees
and glowing with flowers, led to this mausoleum. As
a mark of respect there stood ready to meet us at
the gate a native with a gigantic umbrella, which he

24

37° A Sportswoman in India

proceeded to hold over the General and Mrs. Borton,
walking behind them down the path, while two
natives marched on either side of this umbrella-bearer,
fanning the pair with palm-leaf fans. A band of
tom-toms thumped energetically.

Tippoo Sultan's white-and-black marble sarcophagus
lay strangely peaceful under that cool dome in the
green garden, almost within earshot of his last great
battle, fought among walls wet with his cruelty.
R.I.P.

From Tippoo's tomb we drove to his summer-
house, the Daulett Bagh, a charming spot afterwards
occupied by the Duke of Wellington.

Breakfast was by this time more than ordinarily
acceptable, and the usually empty bungalow bore signs
of the Maharajah's arrangements for us. The hall,
one side of which was again entirely open to the
garden, with steps running along the length of it,
made an airy breakfast-room. In the building and
decorations of this bungalow-palace summer-house,
the natives showed a sense of the fitness of things.
Entirely without glass in the windows, or doors, not
even a curtain prevented the warm, scent-laden air
from circulating in the rooms ; the walls and ceilings
were fantastically decorated with simple washes of
scarlet and gold, while round the outside ran a curious
and gaudy fresco, a huge painting representing the
siege of Seringapatam. The rooms were few, the
building solid.

In England such a summer-house would have con-

From Elephant Khcddcr to Crocodile Tank 371

stituted a shrieking protest against good taste ; but
under the glowing Eastern sun, in a garden where tube-
roses were growing like daisies, making the air languid
with scent, where the shrill Indian birds were scream-
ing in the boughs, where the great trees seemed
abnormally cool and shady, the well-watered, open
lawns a giddy flare of hot sunlight, those scarlet-and-
gold walls, daring, glaring though they were, struck
the same key, and were true to nature, and therefore
good.

The spirit of Tippoo Sultan, of his opulent, intrigu-
ing, and luxurious court, was surely somewhere in those
few debonair acres, not upon the ruined bastions of
the fort where he had died, nor under the silent
marble dome to which his body was consigned.

Breakfast over, we drove to one more interesting
" memory " in Seringapatam, Colonel Scott's bungalow.
Years and years ago this man went away on service,
and when he came back to his bungalow he found his
wife and his children all dead of cholera. He went
straight away, back to England, leaving everything
behind him, and never turned eastwards again. The
Governor of Seringapatam issued an order that the
bungalow should be left as it was, untouched, for ever
and a day.

We walked up the mossy, overgrown drive, through
a neglected compound — scarcely to be recognised as
such — now a small jungle of bamboos and palms,
into the deserted bungalow beyond, which stood open,
as Scott had walked out of it, a lifetime since. The

372 A Sportswoman in India

tattered arras clung to the walls ; the faded, ant-eaten
carpets lay rotting on the floors ; the fabric of the
curtains scarcely hung together ; dusty furniture filled
the rooms ; there were big, old-fashioned, four-post
beds, with mouldering mosquito-curtains still clinging
to them ; even a few knick-knacks lay about undis-
turbed ; and I saw an old pair of boots.

Beyond the bungalow stretched down to the banks
of the Cauvery a wilderness of a garden ; from the
garden, worn stone steps led down to the river ; and
upon a hot rock in the middle of the water lay a
great crocodile basking in the sun. Some half-worn,
childish initials, cut deep into the bark of an old, mossy
tree trunk, " T. S." and " W. H. S.," were infinitely
touching. The bungalow was indeed a derelict. Were
we living now or then ? " Is civilisation a failure ?
And is the Circassian played out ? " Morbid ten-
dencies cannot live in juxtaposition with the native,
however. For example, we trained back from
Seringapatam to Bangalore, and at one station where
we stopped for tiffin great efforts in the decoration
line had evidently been made. At each end of the
table we were faced by vast letters composed of small
yellow seed, upon the cloth, " W.C." This stood for
Welcome.

I hope it may never be my lot to travel on such a
slow line again. A distance of eighty miles took us
from 1 1 a.m. to 7 p.m. to accomplish — ten miles an
hour. We had, however, the consolation of plenty
of space — a reserved carriage for the ladies and

From Elephant Kheddcr to Crocodile Tank 373

poodle, another for the General, and a third for his
staff.

Government House, Guindy, outside Madras, is a
striking type of the best Indian houses, and a short
visit we paid there was a most enjoyable one.

Having trained to Madras, we drove out seven miles
to Guindy. The Madras climate is shocking — there is
no other word for it. A gentle perspiration was every
one's perpetual state ; the punkahs at Guindy never
had a quiet half-hour. Sir Arthur and Lady Havelock
were most hospitable, and the large garden party which
I recollect they gave impressed itself on the memory
by reason of the gallant show of top-hats and frock-
coats in such a temperature.

Guindy Park reminded one forcibly of a park at
home. Six miles in circumference, well wooded, and
rather overstocked, if anything, with spotted deer and
antelope, there are plenty of hares, snipe, and quail as
well. Mr. Adam used to say : <c You have a charming
house out of which you can walk and shoot snipe ; you
have a swimming-bath outside your door, a cricket-
ground in your park, a racecourse at your gates, and
your own pack of foxhounds meets close to you twice
a week : what more can a man want ? In fact, Guindy
is an ideal residence for six weeks in the year Men
entendu" For a longer period the climate drowns the
most energetic life in enervating languor, and under-
mines the strength.

Guindy consists of three garden houses, each two
stories high, and all three connected by long corridors,

374 A Sportswoman in India

so arranged that every breath of air which stirs finds
its way through the open verandahs into the lofty
rooms. The walls of this airy palace are faced with a
material made of sea-shells and mortar, locally known
as chunam. It takes an extraordinarily high polish,
and in a clear atmosphere it maintains a most perfect
whiteness — a purity which is only equalled by
the Taj.

Guindy is a snow palace amidst tropical heat, the
whitest house in the world. Green lawns and terraces
stretch round it, themselves masses of endless varieties
of beautiful creepers, begonias, thunbergias of different
sorts, yellow allamanders, pink antigonum, passion-
flowers, clematis, stephanotis, blazes of bougainvillier,
and more flowers than would fill a chapter.

Madras City is not built upon either of the three
great rivers, the Krishna, the Godavari, or the Cauvery,
which drain the southern table-land of India, and the
want of a river is more or less felt. Not that Indian
rivers suggest, like the Thames, boating, picnics, and
painted barges : visions of a thousand dhobies wash-
ing countless garments, acres of the banks hidden by
linen drying in the sun ; visions of turtles appearing
and disappearing in the River Jumna below the Taj
walls ; visions of muggers (crocodiles) asleep on the
rocks of the Cauvery, — such are the connections of
Indian rivers.

And the impression left by muggers outweighs all
others. It is more an impression than a reality — for
even if one shoots a crocodile, few are easily secured,

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 375

because they sink at once in deep water, and therefore,
however many tiger skins upon the wall savour of fact,
one's boots of crocodile skin and chairs of crocodile
leather exist only in the imagination.

Neither is it very easy to kill a crocodile. Only
two points are immediately fatal — the first behind the
eye, and the second exactly through the centre of the
shoulder, which will pass straight into the lungs. The
only rifle of much use is "577 ; the -450 solid bullet is
always fatal. How long S. used to sit, waiting for
muggers to show themselves on the banks of the
Godavari ! how cunning and astute they grew ! and
when he had turned away from the river, how they
would appear like floating logs upon the surface,
emerge, and sun themselves upon its mud banks !

The crocodile is a distinctly shudderous animal, and
will always be connected in my mind with a sad
accident which happened on one of many shikar
expeditions.

Camping out in the jungle by a large river in the
Deccan, sitting in one of the tents in the cool of the
evening, the shooting party were electrified by one of
the syces rushing unceremoniously in, casting himself
upon the ground, and clutching Colonel P. round the
legs in a state of terrified excitement. Recovering his
breath, he burst into tears and gasped out, " Syce — syce
gone ! taken away from my side by crocodile now
this minute ! We wash clothes — crocodile come ! "
c* Syce — what syce ? " said Colonel P. " There are half
a dozen syces" " Brother ! — my brother ! " the man

376 A Sportswoman in India

cried. u Syce belong to Toby pony. We wash clothes
together down in river, not deep at all — deep near ;
suddenly big, big crocodile — jump like tiger — catch my
brother by waist — dash away — very bobbery crocodile
— drag him into deep — water all boiling — down below.
Come quick ! " Alas ! what avail ! The river was
soon reached at a run. On the bank lay the wet, half-
washed clothes ; there was the shallow with a ripple on
it where the men had stood ; down below, the oily
surface of the deep water lay calm and unruffled in
the stillness of a fine night, as peaceful as though it
had never been disturbed. The man who had lost his
brother sat down and sobbed. One of the best syces
was indeed gone for ever.

A crocodile can keep under water for ten minutes.
As a rule, it holds its prey beneath the surface till it
is drowned ; then taking it to its favourite hiding-
place, devours it. Though fish is, in the ordinary
course of things, its food, it occasionally attacks man,
and bathing in tropical rivers known to be full of
muggers is therefore unsafe. As the poor syce de-
scribed it, a crocodile's dash at his prey is instantaneous,
like a steamboat cutting through the water, faster
than the fastest swimmer, more like a gigantic fish.

The largest mugger ever known in India — though
not having seen it myself, I cannot vouch for the
measurements — was said to be thirty feet long and
thirteen feet in circumference, its head alone weighing
three hundred pounds. On opening the body it was
found to contain, besides other parts of a horse,

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 377

its three legs entire, torn off at the haunch and
shoulders.

Some friends of ours heard of a young girl of about
thirteen years of age who was washing clothes, like
the syce, in a river little inhabited by crocodiles, with
some companions. As the evening closed in, the
other women retired to the bank to wring out and
pack up the garments ; the girl, however, rather
despising their warnings against crocodiles, washed on,
boasting that she had often done it before, and that
there was no danger. Suddenly a scream and cry
in the vernacular, " Lord, have mercy upon me ! —
mugger's caught me ! " apprised her horrified com-
panions that she had been carried off. The next
morning there was a general search for the amphibious
monster ; on the second day it was successful. He
was hunted down and killed ; two carts were lashed
together, and his body, seventeen and a half feet
long, was tied upon them, and taken to the village.
The remains of the victim, including a bracelet, were
in his stomach.

But I knew one really amusing occurrence in
connection with crocodiles. Three men were out
shooting by the Cauvery ; they separated, agreeing
to return to camp at their own sweet will. Two
turned up in the course of the evening ; the third,
a priest, never appeared. A search was instituted
with the help of lanterns. At last the river "banks
were reached, and through the darkening thickets, in
answer to their shouts, a distant " Hallo ! " was heard.

37 8 A Sportswoman in India

Eventually they came upon the priest, secure, up
in the branches of a tree, a crocodile crouched in a
bush close at hand waiting for his descent. Having
despatched the brute with their rifles, the two com-
panions heard the description of the pursuit of the
priest by the crocodile : how the monster had
suddenly appeared on the river bank, making for
the sportsman, who fired and missed him ; how the
crocodile gave chase, pursuing the priest by a succession
of leaps, jumping rapidly with back crooked like a
frightened cat. Providentially, a tree was at hand
with low branches, up which the priest flew.

The sight must have been a nightmare to him for
years ; for even in captivity a crocodile is repulsive,
with its sixty-eight immense teeth specially made for
seizing, and which interlock after the manner of a rat-
trap, from which there is no escape ; the two longest
teeth in the lower jaw actually penetrate through corre-
sponding holes and appear above the top of the
upper jaw.

Muggers are supposed to live to a great age,
surpassed only by the tortoise. There is one in the
garden at Mutwal, Colombo, known to have been there
for a hundred and fifty years ; its age when it was first
caught is a mystery.

Crocodile s tears were an ancient myth, for we find
an old chronicler writing : " There are not many bruite
beastes that can weepe^but such is the nature of the
crocodile that to get a man within his danger, he will
sob, sigh and weepe as tho' he were in extremitie,

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 379

but suddenly he destroyeth him." Even Shakespeare
says,—

The mournful crocodile

With sorrow snares relenting passengers.

A sight not to be missed, if one is in the north-west
of India and near Kurachie, is the crocodile tank at
that place. I grant that it is possibly a loathsome sight,
but it is certainly an interesting one.

In the first place there is a great swamp ; this in
former times was infested with crocodiles who lived
there and roamed about the neighbourhood at will,
seeking what they might devour ; in fact, so great was
the havoc they made, that the natives built a wall
round the swamp, which effectually kept them within
bounds.

The swamp itself is caused by hot springs, the
medicinal virtues of which, known from early times,
have always been attributed to the sanctity of a
Mohammedan's tomb which lies close by — a most holy
spot. The crocodiles are sacred to this Mohammedan.

One can count over two hundred reptiles in the
tank. There are about a hundred and fifty by eighty
yards of green, slimy, stagnant water, and in this solid
ooze the huge, uncouth monsters move sluggishly about,
so tame in a sense that it is necessary to poke them
with a stick before they will move.

The following tale of the crocodile tank I am assured
is perfectly true ; I give it for what it is worth.

One year the swamp was exceptionally dry. Time of
day — after dinner. Dramatis persona — a party of

380 A Sportswoman in India

young subalterns playing the fool. At last one youthful
idiot performed the feat of slipping over the wall, and
ran across a corner of the morass, unharmed. Still more
elated, he proposed a crocodile ride ; was laughed to
scorn ; stuck to his suggestion ; large bets were made ;
he ran off with his mind made up, and shortly after
reappeared, bringing with him a fowl tied to a long
piece of rope, and carrying in the other hand a
large steel fork. He lashed the rope securely to a
palm-tree, the fowl being within easy reach of the
water.

Such a tempting bait was not long in drawing a
monster out of the morass — a real saurian, every inch
of him, some twenty feet long. The mugger made
for the fowl, took the bait, and finding it caught, set
to work to pull until the palm-tree vibrated again,
while he shook his head and lashed his great tail
violently. Meanwhile, the gay young subaltern, jump-
ing down the wall, now much to consternation of his
brother officers, proceeded to approach the great beast
from behind, running quickly up to it, and seating
himself like an elephant-driver on its thick neck. The
vertebrae of a crocodile's neck bear upon each other
by means of rib-like processes, the neck being thus
deprived to a great extent of its mobility ; hence
crocodiles have a difficulty in turning.

The instant the reptile, unaccustomed to carry
weight, felt the foolish youth upon his back, he sacri-
ficed the fowl and ran off with his rider towards the
water. On his way, however, he slackened his speed

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 381

and stopped, then began a wriggling, zigzag course,
doing his best to get his unwieldy head round and
bite his rider. The boy promptly rammed the prongs
of the steel fork well into the crocodile's neck, and
set him going again. Just as he was about to plunge
into the water, his jockey sprang actively up, leapt
on one side, and just escaping a terrific lash from the
great tail, ran back safely to the wall, having a
second time been saved from a fate which he almost
deserved.

Buffaloes have never been attacked by the inhabitants
of this tank, but any other animals are seized at once.
Not that buffaloes are by any means exempt, for I
remember the case of a poor bullock which was seized
by a large mugger when it was in the act of drinking,
and dragged into deep water. The struggling beast
was a terrible sight to see ; its head was held firmly
under water, and it gradually disappeared until only
its tail, which twisted and writhed convulsively in the
air like a snake, was left above the surface. A few
minutes, and the whole body floated — drowned ; while
at its side a long snout and a pair of malicious,
triumphant eyes obtruded themselves above the
surface.

In the dry season muggers bury themselves in the
mud and remain dormant until the return of moister
conditions. They can exist thus without food for many
months ; and there was a well-known case of a sahib
who, camping out one night upon a little island in the
Ganges, was disturbed by a strange motion of the

3 82 A Sportswoman in India

earth beneath his bed ; explained on the morrow by
the final upheaval of the dry mud, and the emergence
of a crocodile !

The carelessness of natives, their foolhardiness in
connection with danger of all sorts, is incredible ; it
must arise from crass stupidity quite as much as from
the spirit of Kismet, in which they blindly live. The
following is a last example connected with a subject
which must begin to pall upon my readers.

It was reported upon the Jumna that a crocodile
had been seen, but the servants belonging to a camping
party ridiculed the idea of danger even if this were
so, either could or would not believe their word, and
calmly proceeded to ford the river, most of them
splashing across it in a shallow place lower down ;
all except one man, who, to save himself the trouble
of riding on another fifty yards, proceeded to plunge
through in a deeper place. He reached the middle
of the stream, looked round, laughed at the cavalcade
wading across down below, . . . the laugh died upon his
lips — a crocodile was upon him with a gigantic spring !
Its teeth met in the saddle, which it literally tore off
the horse's back ; the horse stood paralysed with fright.
The man, in some inexplicable way, had escaped the
great jaws, and was now positively hurling himself
through the water towards the bank. Another instant,
and the crocodile dashed after him. But Providence
had ordained that the sahib should be carrying his
rifle ; a bullet turned the crocodile, he swam back
into deep water, and vanished as suddenly as he had

From Elephant Khcdder to Crocodile Tank 383

appeared, the saddleless horse meantime making its
way down-stream and rejoining the others.

My experiences with muggers in India must end
with a quotation from that great authority Sir Samuel
Baker, in the shape of a description of his which has
always struck me.

" The largest crocodiles I ever saw were of such
extraordinary dimensions that I could scarcely believe
the reality, although within only a few yards of our
canoe. I had a life's experience among these creatures,
but I never had the faintest conception that such
monsters were in existence.

" We were travelling up a river bordered upon
either side by lofty papyrus and sombre forests, when
we observed a small island, a portion of the area being
overgrown with the very graceful but mournful-looking
rush. This had taken root in a shallow soil ; hard
granite formed the basis of the isle.

" The bare, grey granite shelved gradually towards
the water and exposed a clear surface of about sixty
feet. Upon this were large, round bodies resembling
boulders of rock which had resisted the process of
gradual disintegration.

" The canoe drew near, and when within about
twenty yards the great boulders of granite began to
move ! I could not believe my eyes ! Great masses
began to unfold, and in a few seconds resolved them-
selves into two vast forms, each as thick as the body
of a hippopotamus and of enormous length. These
two antediluvian monsters glided slowly and fearlessly

384 A Sportswoman in India

along the gently sloping granite, and when half beneath
the water they exposed a breadth of back which was the
most extraordinary sight I have ever seen in my long
experience of crocodiles. I did not wish to proclaim
our presence to the tribes by the report of firearms.

" I would not presume to estimate the length of
these extraordinary creatures ; but the deep and broad
river, flowing silently through one of the oldest portions
of the earth, suggested, by the exhibition of these
mighty forms, that no change in the inhabitants of
the stream had taken place since the Original Creation."

An Englishman in the Civil Service, who was for
some years a Commissioner in the Bombay Presidency,
has forwarded me some specimens of letters which
he received from time to time from natives, soliciting
his favour in various ways. Some idea of the native
mind may be formed from them.

Application from office subordinate for promotion.

" MOST RESPECTED AND BENEVOLENT SIR,

"As a calf seeks earnestly its Mother when
strayed in the Forest, so we seek for you. As Your
Honour attain a high position now, I humbly beg
that my case for promotion be considered," etc., etc.

Reply from a man to whom I had offered a
chuprassie's place.

" RESPECTED SIR,

"In reply to your favour of yesterday for
the offer of a place of a Belt to me under your Honour,

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 385

I beg to bring to your Honour's notice I am willing
to serve under your Honour and would have accepted
the boon offered to me favoured by your Honour,
" if my family " [that is, wife] " who had just now
delivered up a child, were not sick," etc., etc.

From my butler, bringing up my heavy kit by sea on
my transfer from Ratnagiri to North of Bombay.

" Mv MASTER,

<c I beg to inform that I have just reached to
Bombay from Ratnagiri from where I have sailed
to a [native boat] on the 29th last, but owing the
storm and heavy rains I was obliged to make different
ports : your furniture are on good terms, but two
Boxes unimportants are little wet," etc., etc.

Petition for an appointment.

". . . By your graciously extending this humane
bounty towards a fallen, crushed and miserable young
man, you will bestow on him a marked and sub-
stantial boon. Boon which will always be vivid on
the tablet of your insignificant servant's heart, and
will fail not out of gratitude to elicit constant and
unceasing prayers to the Divine majesty for your
and family's longevity and prosperity, until he is a
guest of this nether world," etc., etc.

25

3 86 A Sportswoman in India

Advertisement of a toy. Indiarubber snake toy.

" A very strange and singular Toy for Joke. Being
too exact and similar like a Snake, no eyes can evade
its dread."

From the Headmaster's report of the school.

"... I have gathered many of the natural products
of the earth for the School Museum which is worth
to be seen. The Educational Authorities have acquired
newly a place for Boys to play their plays on, in hours
of leisure. There is a gymnasium in the school which
also falls short of some of its necessary instruments."

Application for a clerkship.

" MOST HONOURED SIR,

c< With every mark of respect and due humility,
I beg to lay the few following lines before your
Honour, a bright dazzling sunshine to scatter the
heavy clouds impending all around.

" I beg to say that philosophic saying of days of
yore and of modern theologist based on best truths
to the effect that the sunshine and storms of life go
hand in hand, are but theoretical and negative to me
alone, since my introduction to the sphere up to the
present stage. I am journeying through the vale of
life with none to help and none to free me from the
cruel jaws of chill penury though possessed of minions
of splendour. Nevertheless I am, which keep up my
feelings of patience, and to stand on firm foot amidst

From Elephant Khcdder to Crocodile Tank 387

the heart rending difficulties by the phantoms of melan-
choly. Notwithstanding, big with these reflections by
being buoyed up by hope, a guide in the thorns of
life, I have made known my humble petition to your
Honour," etc., etc.

Bill of fare written out by my butler for a dinner party,
with translation of the same.

BLIF.

Lakes Kroot befour soop.

Kaleer Mullochdani.
Amen soop.

ENTRES.
Chiken oleef frengee wit musrom.

Pigan patees cold.

JANT.

Rosht gunifool and Sausit.

Motion rost alia Soobi.

Kami.

BILL OF FARE.
Lax crout before soup.

Clear mulligatawny.
Almond soup.

ENTREES.

Chicken olives fringed with mush-
rooms.
Pigeon patties.

JOINT.

Roast guinea-fowl and sausages.

Mutton roast a la Soubise.

Ham.

SECAN COSE.
Paregras. Klear sace.

SAVRI.
Espises Quil.

Hort Plampteen nice.

Appal Sufli.
Clarat Jaley wi Krim.

SECOND COURSE.
Asparagus. Clear sauce.

SAVOURY.
Spiced quail.

Hot plum-pudding. Nice!

Apple soufiee.
Claret jelly with cream.

Chakelet Krim ice.

Chocolate cream ice.

388 A Sportswoman in India

1{eport as to the health of the infant son of the Nawab
of Sachin, ill from " teething" forwarded to me as
a Political Agent.

" ... He feels better to-day. By the grace of
God the grinders have already come out. He, greedily,
takes milk of couji, recommended of the Doctor,"
etc., etc.

With entrance fee for race.

"My DEAR SIR,

" Although my horses are sick yet my son
wishes to take them to racecourse, if you would
kindly agree to it please take the fee. I have
two horses, white and red, by name Mirbux and
Oomerbux. My boy Syed Zane will ride on. He
is with blue dress boardered with white rebin," etc., etc.

'Telegram to me when Collector of Salt Revenue from
salt trader wanting to know when certain salt
would be available.

" Will find salt and what rate or no find or when
find reply prepaid."

Self and a man were both studying Gujarati.

" It has of late come to my knowledge that your
Honours are prosecuting a Gujarati study, and I in
consequence with feelings of deep gratitude and
heartfelt respect, beg to apprise your kind Honours

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 389

that I feel highly willing to impart a Gujarati Tuition,
as a matter of interest, to such men of parts as your
Honours, with a sanguine hope that your Honours will
not fail to grant me my request, for I am very fain
to have a company of such gentlemen of merits as you.
In case your Honours grant my request, I shall of my
own accord spare an hour per diem for your Honours.

" I remain," etc., etc.

If any of my readers have waded thus far through
this multifarious correspondence, I owe it to them
to ask for their indulgence over a last and longest
epistle, which personifies " cringing " and " toady-ism"
is full of unconscious humour — in fact, flattery is laid
on with creation's shovel.

Letter written in English from a native subordinate
holding a responsible position, who was trying to
worm himself out of the Service to avoid being
dismissed.

" MOST RESPECTED SIR,

" I beg to open this letter by offering my
sincerest respects to you, with an apology for the
intrusion.

u You may be aware that the Deputy Commissioner's
order to appear myself before him, left me no time to
follow my intentions, the first of which was to visit
you on my way hither. I regret I was not able to
wait on you on account of your absence at headquarters,
though it was my duty to have done so in token of

39° A Sportswoman in India

my high sense of gratitude for all past favours. Indeed
you have always evinced towards me such a merciful
regard in the exercise of that authority which God
has rested in you, that I feel quite unable to repay it
by any other means than by a mere grateful recollection
of those days I passed under you as so many brightest
sparks of my life. If I may speak out candidly I can
assure you with confidence and without fear of being
charged with flattery, that I have chanced to see very
few gentlemen in my life so good in heart, so sound
in judgment, so full in knowledge, and above all so
exemplary in manners as your noble self, qualities very
rarely met with in men of high ranks.

" When you last conducted the Revenue Settlement,
I had a beautiful opportunity of testing all these praise-
worthy qualities in you, and whenever I came in contact
with you in the course of my duties, it was always
my secret pleasure to mark the masterly grace and
facility with which you responded to the callings of
your office.

" Such abilities combined with various other singular
accomplishments as you possess, could not fail to
astonish me and heighten the admiration of a servant
of my insignificant stamp.

u Allowing for my limited experience of the political
part of the world, I conceive that I am not far incorrect
in supposing that if Nature ever stored all the high
gifts of mankind in the formation of one person, it
was undoubtedly in you that I found them to exist in
their perfection. Such being my unfeigned impression,

From Elephant Khedder to Crocodile Tank 391

I could no longer hide telling you that I am attached,
or rather I love you, both as an energetic officer of
the Commission and as an exemplary model of a
thorough Gentleman.

" I should have been exceedingly happy to remain
some time longer in your service, had I not been forced
to retire by a domestic affliction which overtook me
all of a sudden, and which was too strong for me in
my old age to bear.

"I am therefore resolved to seek consolation in
devoting the remainder of my days to the happy
contemplation of the mysteries of the Most High,
free from all cares and trouble/' etc., etc.

CHAPTER XII
IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL

Home — Reminiscences — The Imperishable Legacy —
The East no More— Advantages and Disadvan-
tages of Travel— Honour to those who Stay at
Home

393

CHAPTER XII

IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL

IN CABINED SHIPS AT SEA.

The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our

feet,

We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of

the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy

rhythm,

The boundless vista, and the horizon far and dim are all here,
And this is the ocean's poem.

WALT WHITMAN.

T TO MR I As the months go on the old ties pull
yet more strongly. The East is said to call ;
but surely no voice was ever so imperative in its
demands upon man or woman as that of Home.

The last month of my year in India, spent in
Bombay, went all too quickly : not that I think Bombay,
of all places, one to linger in for long, but that, as the
last four weeks come to days, it is borne regretfully
in upon one that this is not an ordinary good-bye, but
a good-bye to a country, to a race, as different from our
own dear, damp, foggy England and our hard-working,
stolid Britons as a bull-dog is different from a lanky,
yellow pariah.

395

396 A Sportswoman in India

Down at the Yacht Club in Bombay something
akin to a halo attaches to anybody known to be going
home — soon to be actually in the streets of London,
and seen and heard no more on this side the globe.

Eight days before departure, and a thin line of
smoke on the horizon of the Indian Ocean heralds the
in-coming mail, the sound of the big gun at the fort
booms up to Malabar Hill, for the great weekly link
with England is coming in. Until the following
Saturday the steamer lies up in dock, being generally
overhauled, not provisioned, for she carries out from
London sufficient supplies for the return voyage.

Saturday morning, . . . and I say farewell to the white
bungalow, to my own especial fat ayah, to the pressing
group of thin, angular, beady-eyed servants, cook,
dhobie and all assembled unabashed for expected tips ;
good-bye to the cool garden with broad plantain leaves
round a quaint well, to the shady porch filled with
green maidenhair fern.

Down Malabar Hill we wind ; the blue bay spreads
below us, a few white yachts float idly in a "dead calm,
the picturesque native boats lie pulled up on the beach,
right away in the distance is the long black hull of the
great steamer which in a few hours will actually be on
her way to England. Even now it is hard to realise
that India will this evening be a thing of the past.

We drive along by the shore, where the polo-ponies are
brought by their syces to stand in the sea every morning,
where on the wet sand we have had many a merry
gallop. In the road we meet the usual string of Parsee

Impressions of Travel 397

carriages with the best horses to be had in Bombay.
In the full, blistering glare of the sun stands a native
sweetmeat seller, with wicker stand on his arm, and tray
on his head, heaped with a sticky, half-melted colour-
scheme in the shape of fearsome sweetmeats. Various
officials tramp along the pavement in white drill, which
enhances yet more the chocolate hue of their com-
plexions. We pass occasional and bewitching groups of
natives in brilliant greens and dazzling scarlets, vivid
purples and orange yellows, with oiled locks and
blackened eyes, their silver necklets, earrings, and
anklets jingling musically as they walk, chewing betel-
nut meanwhile and spitting occasionally.

The Bombay cab-horse passes us, with^ a white solar
topi on his hot head. Badham and Pile's shop, over-
run by off-hand Eurasian attendants, fades from view,
where proudly flaunt the fashions of last year, pale with
dust, stiff with the pride of an extortionate price.

The bountiful, beautiful buildings of bumptious,
bureaucratic Bombay will soon bristle no more upon
the vision ; fancy lingers tenderly over the Yacht Club
and its inviting marble hall, its green terrace and broad
expanse of ocean beyond, its comfortable wicker-chairs,
round tables, pots of tea, and brown bread-and-butter,
to be enjoyed in the shade.

Is the water lapping now against that same broad
terrace — the stone balustrade we leaned upon ? Does
the elite of Bombay still trail its skirts across the turf
evening after evening, among the coloured lights, to
the fiddles of the Government House band ?

398 A Sportswoman in India

The Apollo Bunder landing-stage is reached at last.
I recognise my luggage. We are on a small steamer
paddling energetically across the bay out to the ocean
liner. I shall never see India again !

No more white kunka roads with dilapidated ekkas
and bony tats jingling past, nor great, comfortable,
white oxen with painted horns and blue-and-white
cowrie necklaces lying unyoked in the shade of their
carts patiently chewing the cud ; no more khaki-
clad Tommies, nor parade maidans with trim rows of
barracks among avenues of tamarisk- and babul-trees ;
no more naked, black-eyed children of large stomachs,
nor low mud villages with hideous buffaloes wallowing
in marshy swamps.

The cool, marble mosques and palaces, bleaching in
a glowing haze, the bungalows with their dark, high
rooms, and noiseless servants gliding barefoot, the
sleepy, complaining sound of the rhythmical creaking
of the water-wheel in a corner of the compound,
resolve themselves into a memory.

But, dearer than all recollections, the Himalayas
insist most strongly, —

Spirit of Nature ! here !
In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose immensity
Even soaring Fancy staggers. . . .
Spirit of Nature ! Thou,
Imperishable as this scene,
Here is thy fitting temple.

We forget relations and friends — perhaps even our

Impressions of Travel 399

parents — but those stainless peaks and wastes of silent
snow we never forget ; they become part of our souls,
and we care for them with a love which is far removed
from " all passionate wind of welcome and farewell."

The grim, dark deodars mass themselves, in imagina-
tion, on the mountain slopes, carpeted with Nature's
own pine-needle carpet, older than any Persian loom ;
the solid roof of grey-green fir-pins and gaunt branch
rafters is fitfully creaking, moaning, tossing overhead —
<c the wind with its wants and infinite wail."

Far above all, serene in the sunlight, can I not see
the dazzling, splintered crest of the White Mountain
rising in worlds we know not of, luring the traveller,
like the Lorelei of old, to climb and to find a grave
among its solemn crags.

If the magical East has ever cast her spell over us
at all, it is not Society life in India, nor hairbreadth
escapes, nor the fierce excitement of the burra shikar,
to which a candle is lit in our memories. The wax
is melting at another shrine, and the Spirit of the East
which calls us, reigns in the mountains, lives in the
dusty, hot plains, fascinates in the weird, primaeval
jungles, and peoples the ruined cities with ghosts.
It is our own dear possession, this " never-ending
Shadow," bound up with the Unspoken and with all
which is truest and best in our lives ; the only im-
perishable legacy travel can ever give. A rolling stone
may gather no moss ; I do not want your moss.

That we should regret the days of our travels is
perhaps a sign of the spark which occasionally troubles

400 A Sportswoman in India

our finite clods ; the regret is known to many, and
even those who never leave England feel the trammels
of conventionalities and shams, have longed to be for
a space entirely themselves, rid of appearances, in
some —

Waste and desert places, where we taste

The pleasure of believing what we see is boundless,

As we wish our souls to be.

Is this infinite want in man the result of that so seldom
satisfied demand which is eternally made upon human
nature ?

Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade

On desolate sea and lonely sand,
Out of the silence and the shade,

What is the voice of strange command
Calling you still as friend calls friend

With love that cannot brook delay,
To rise and follow the ways that wend

Over the hills and far away ?

Hark ! in the city, street on street,

A roaring reach of death and life,
Of vortices that clash and fleet

And ruin in appointed strife.
Hark to it calling, calling clear,

Calling, until you cannot stay,
From dearer things than your own most dear

Over the hills and far away.

Out of the sound of ebb and flow,

Out of the sight of lamp and star,
It calls you where the good winds blow,

And the unchanging meadows are :

Impressions of Travel 401

From faded hopes and hopes agleam,
It calls you, calls you night and day,

Beyond the dark into the dream,
Over the hills and far away.

(W. E. HENLEY.)

The voyage home has little of the glamour of the
footlights about it. No one likes the angle of their
rooms to be on a slope of twenty or thirty degrees ;
no one appreciates the smell of warm oil and cookery ;
the decks for exercise are limited ; reading is difficult
under the circumstances ; " sweeps " upon the run of
the ship lose their interest ; life resolves itself into
three solid meals a day, and if possible, beef-tea at
eleven and tea at five.

India fades on the horizon ; for the first few days,
beyond being monotonous, the voyage is not aggressive.
The oily stretches of the Indian Ocean bask in a
placid smile unbroken by a ripple. As Kipling
describes it, —

The Injian Ocean sets an' smiles

So soft, so bright, so bloomin' blue ;
There ain't a wave for miles and miles

Excep' the jiggle from the screw.
The ship is swep', the day is done,

The bugle's gone for smoke and play ;
An' black against the settin' sun

The Lascar sings " Hum deckty hai / " *

Until we reached Port Said India seemed still with
us in the glory of the sunsets. Evening after evening
we sat up in the bows and watched where the sun

* " I'm looking out ! "

26

402 A Sportswoman in India

was setting over home. Straight into the west the
Shannon cut her way, the sharp bows dividing the
quiet water and throwing back on either side two
great, curling waves flecked with foam ; behind her a
widening track of bubbles and broken water stretched
across the calm waste to the very horizon.

Orange and scarlet, crimson and golden, the sun dips
into the sea ; Europe has never seen such a sky, such
pure, unearthly colour. We steam steadily ahead into
a world of water and air, into masses of quiet violet,
into reaches of stainless gold. The masts stand up
against an opal sheen, the long bowsprit is set upon
the spot where the red ball dropped, the bowsprit
swings slightly as we hurry on into the kingdom of
the sunset.

After Port Said — a great change ! The look of " the
East " is gone for evermore ; grey banks of cloud lie
on the horizon ; there is a general bleakness to be felt ;
thenceforward, as each old, familiar landmark in the
Mediterranean turned up, colder grew the conditions
under which we sighted them, for it was the last week
in a chilly February. It blew a gale ; for the rest
of the voyage the " fiddles " were oftener than not
on the tables.

No longer —

Through the endless summer evenings
On the lineless, level floors,

but —

Through the yelling Channel tempest
When the siren hoots and roars,

Impressions of Travel 4°3

the Shannon made her way, across a well-ploughed
wintry sea. We learnt what the lift of the great
Atlantic combers means. The bay was a grand tonic ;
the sea scours the mind together with the body.
Lulled to sleep by its rough cradling and salt breezes,
incantations rose to —

The mother of mutable winds and hours,
Cold and clean as her faint, salt flowers.

The most intrepid spirit may well flinch before
London on Sunday, at the hour of 7 a.m. ; but the
P. & O. Company decree that the ordeal must be
gone through. And so we were back once more,
and trod the sloppy pavements and breathed fog ;
and who can wonder if there arose a yearning " beyond
the sky-line where the strange roads go down " in
exchange for this " man-stifled town " ?

The desire grows with years : is it true that we
drag at each remove a lengthening chain? Perhaps
the longer human nature — given to idealise — looks
through Time's telescope, the brighter grows the
vision at the other end ; the discomforts connected
with travelling sink into the shade, its pleasures heighten
in tone.

Travel has many advantages, of course ; nothing
appeals to mankind like " change," or better satisfies
the restlessness felt at some time or another by every
human being. It does not come natural to " sit tight " —
it means an effort of will. As children we begin by
exploring under the dining-room table among the

404 A Sportswoman in India

footstools ; as we grow older we alter the horizon a
little, that is all. And in return for our trouble we
learn experience, which no courses of reading, however
well they may stock our minds with knowledge, can
supply.

/ have felt stands for more than / can imagine what
others have felt. Experience means a variety of things :
it includes the development of the perceptive powers,
dependence upon self, and a wider knowledge of self ;
it inculcates generous views ; it causes, in short, a great
mental expansion.

Self-knowledge, self-reverence, self-control,
Are the three hinges of the gates of life
That open into power.

To see more is to feel more; and to feel more is
to think more. Travel teaches us to see over our
boundary fences, to think less intolerantly, less con-
temptuously of each other. It teaches us to overlook
the limitations of religions and morality, and to recog-
nise that they are relative terms, fluctuating quantities,
husks round the kernel of truth. Travel dismisses the
notion that we are each of us the biggest dog in the
kennel.

The majority of men who are desirous of finding
out the truth about any matter must, to do so, travel,
and travel independently, not as the mouthpiece of
a newspaper, which necessarily ties them — as in the
case, for example, of war correspondents.

One of the very few benefits which accrue to man

Impressions of Travel 4°5

through the agency of that deplorable evil, war, is
that it brings two widely separate nations into juxta-
position. A. rights and conquers B., and is obliged
to stay with and see something of B. B. discovers
that A. is not a bad fellow after all, and that the only
reason for which they never fraternised before was
that A. possessed a sense of national dignity for which
B. had never given him credit.

If Ireland had been travelled over to the same extent
that Scotland has, there would have been as little
alienation, as few misunderstandings with England,
as there are now between Scotland and England. If
the Chinese had travelled as did the old Venetians,
China might have produced a Bellini, a Titian, a
Tintoretto, or a Paul Veronese, instead of stagnating
in pigtails and grinning idols. How much of Dr.
Johnson's blind obstinacy and narrow prejudice, of
Scott's feudalism and Toryism, would have vanished
had they emigrated or travelled !

Applied to case after case, infinite are the advantages
of going abroad ; and yet there is much to be said
for the other side, although book after book upon the
subject proclaims the virtues and urges the necessity
of travelling. What made England ? Not entirely
our great explorers and our sailors : Spain possessed a
Cortes, a Pizarro. England has produced the greatest
nation in the world ; and her backbone has been and
is the strong, patient character forced to stay at home
and work.

As a rule, it is the light character who travels ; the

406 A Sportswoman in India

solid nature, having found its place, stays there, makes
home worth living in, and contributes towards making
a nation. He does not go to meet adventure nor
foreign lands and men ; content to wait, his day comes,
and all nationalities upon earth travel to England in
order to see the result of the blood of John Bull.

It is only a sophism to argue that without having
travelled, a man is necessarily narrow and prejudiced ;
the " best things," happily, " are nearest him, lie close
about his feet" ; life teaches him that lesson, if it
teaches him nothing else.

Though young blood must have its course, and
every dog his day, yet —

When all the world is old, lad,

And all the trees are brown,
And all the sport is stale, lad,

And all the wheels run down,
Creep home and take your place there,

The spent and maimed among :
God grant you find one face there

You loved when all was young.

Travel is in part a superstition. The leisured class
in England says to itself, " I must travel, or it will be
said of me that I am doing nothing " ; thus it fosters
its luxuriant, vagabond habits, and wilfully turns its
back upon a useful sphere. Travel is apt to induce an
idle life and an inordinate love of change, which grows
with years and in time effectually paralyses more solid
impulses : for such travellers do little good as they
hurry over continent after continent ; the view they

Impressions of Travel 407

take is but a cursory one — barely a view of things at
all ; they pass their days between a lounge and a
siesta.

What, I should like to know, have they found out
about a country, who rush across it, without giving
its natural features, its people, its politics, more than
a cold, casual stare, whose thoughts run in the line
of their own amusement, own comfort, own weariness,
own inconvenience at hotels ?

The club trains to the Riviera carry a multitude
abroad in a luxurious fashion. How much do they
notice of the change in the lie of the land, in the type
of roof and window, of the demarcation between the
chestnut and beech zone, and the pine and larch zone ?
Have they any idea of the experiences to be had
through distance, and through difficulties surmounted ?
What Stevenson calls, " Nature s spiritual ditty, ' 'The
Invitation to the Road" an air continually sounding in
the ears of gypsies, and to whose inspiration our nomadic
fathers journeyed all their days" is to them unknown ;
there is, in short, something supremely selfish in their
mode of travelling.

It has been well said that, " In manly hours we
feel duty to be our place. The soul is no traveller :
the wise man stays at home, or, if he travels, is at
home wherever he goes, and makes men feel it by
his face ; that he goes the missionary of wisdom and
virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, not
like a valet or an interloper."

Too often travelling is a Fool's Paradise. I am

4° 8 A Sportswoman in India

miserable ; I want to get out of myself ; I want to
leave home. 'Travel! I pack up my trunks, say
farewell ; I depart. I go to the very ends of the
earth ; and behold, my skeleton steps out of its
cup-board and confronts me there. I am as pessimistic
as ever, for the last thing I can lose is myself ; and
though I may tramp to the back of beyond, that
grim shadow must always pursue me.

After all is said, only a small percentage of English
men and women have either the leisure or the means
to travel. That the nation is a great gainer through
their experiences, that on their own parts they benefit
themselves thereby, is certain. But with all its far-
reaching delights, travel need not blind our eyes. The
" light that never was on land or sea " is —

Always shining ; if but mortal eyes
Had strength of vision for realities
That lie beyond the things that seem to be !

Printed by Hasell, Watson, & Viney, Ld.t London and Aylesbury.

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